| Abstract |
| Experimental techniques for serial sectioning and reconstruction were investigated in the three-dimensional imaging of microstructures in metallic materials. Mechanical polishing equipped with a light optical microscope and a digital image processor was used for the serial sectioning and reconstruction. Different processing conditions were investigated for three different alloys: Al-Si alloy, Al-SiC composite, and AZ31 magnesium alloy. Proper selection of polishing cloths and polishing abrasives was pre-requisite for obtaining good slice images. The thicknesses of the slices were precisely controlled for each alloy by changing the mechanical polishing and chemical etching conditions. Two-step polishing was a very effective method for serial sectioning of multi-phase alloys with a soft matrix and hard particles such as Al-SiC composites. Image filtering with a delineate and median filter was very useful for successful image segmentation of multi-phase alloys.(Received October 8, 2015; Accepted January 23, 2016) |
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| Key Words |
| metals, casting, microstructure, optical microscopy, 3d imaging |
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