Microstructure features identification in ferritic-paerlitic ductile irons

Ductile irons offer a wide range of mechanical properties at a lower cost than the older malleable iron. These properties mainly depend on the shape characteristics of the metal matrix microstructure and on the graphite elements morphology; these geometrical features are currently evaluated by the experts visual inspection. This work provides an automatic procedure for a reliable standard estimation of the material microstructure morphology based on a novel image segmentation technique. The procedure has been successfully tested on specimens of different kinds of ductile irons of a typical production