Fission gas bubble identification using MATLAB's image processing toolbox

Journal Article · 07 June 2016 · Materials Characterization

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchar.2016.06.010 · OSTI ID:1294583

Collette, R. ^[1]; King, J.  ^[1]; Keiser, Jr., D. ^[2]; Miller, B. ^[2]; Madden, J. ^[2]; Schulthess, J. ^[2]

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1. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
2. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

Automated image processing routines have the potential to aid in the fuel performance evaluation process by eliminating bias in human judgment that may vary from person-to-person or sample-to-sample. In addition, this study presents several MATLAB based image analysis routines designed for fission gas void identification in post-irradiation examination of uranium molybdenum (U–Mo) monolithic-type plate fuels. Frequency domain filtration, enlisted as a pre-processing technique, can eliminate artifacts from the image without compromising the critical features of interest. This process is coupled with a bilateral filter, an edge-preserving noise removal technique aimed at preparing the image for optimal segmentation. Adaptive thresholding proved to be the most consistent gray-level feature segmentation technique for U–Mo fuel microstructures. The Sauvola adaptive threshold technique segments the image based on histogram weighting factors in stable contrast regions and local statistics in variable contrast regions. Once all processing is complete, the algorithm outputs the total fission gas void count, the mean void size, and the average porosity. The final results demonstrate an ability to extract fission gas void morphological data faster, more consistently, and at least as accurately as manual segmentation methods.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 1294583
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 22689584
• Report Number(s): INL/JOU--15-35421; {"PII: S1044580316301760","Journal ID: ISSN 1044-5803"}
• Journal Information: Materials Characterization, Journal Name: Materials Characterization Journal Issue: C Vol. 118; ISSN 1044-5803
• Publisher: ElsevierCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English