Quantitative characterization of uniformity of cells in aluminum foams

A quantitative characterization method instead of qualitative ocular estimate about uniformity of cells in aluminum foams was put forward based on the digital image processing and analysis technology. This method includes three steps as follows: firstly intercept specially the section of aluminum foams with suitable contrast between the pores and cell wells by superficial treatment, and acquire the section photographs. Then convert the section photographs to gray images by using image processing software-Photoshop, and transform the gray images into binary images by scientific computing software-Matlab with suitable threshold values. Finally calculate the corresponding using the image analysis software. The results show that the calculated uniformity is basically coincident with the observational result. In addition, this method can be also used to analyze the planar porosity, and the error between the planar porosity calculated and volume porosity measured is approximately 4%.