Quantitative Characterization of Spatial Arrangement of Micropores in Cast Microstructures

Spatial arrangement of micropores is an important geometric attribute of cast microstructures. The spatial arrangement of porosity is determined by the solidification processing parameters, and it affects the mechanical properties of cast components. Quantitative information of the spatial arrangement of micropores is useful for modeling cast microstructures. In this contribution, a digital image analysis based experimental technique is presented for unbiased quantitative characterization of the spatial arrangement of microporosity in terms of the statistical descriptors such as the first, the second, and the third nearest neighbor distance distribution of the pores observed in metallographic sections of cast micro-structures.