Quantitative Image Analysis with Mathematical Morphology

This papers deals with the analysis of shape and size of the debris particles obtained from wear experiments on polymers using image processing. Two analysis techniques that are very promising in this respect are the morphological pattern spectrum and the Fourier spectrum. They can be used to extract parameters that relate to particle size and shape. We experimentally compare different choices for these parameters in order to determine the usefulness of the pattern spectrum in the field of material science. The first tests were done on a polymer called “polyimide”. We performed wear experiments with different temperatures, loads and frequencies. In the future we will perform experiments on composite materials. Keywords— mathematical morphology; sliding bearing materials; pattern spectrum; opening tree; fast Fourier transform