Area Fraction

Area Fraction

The problem

The area fraction, or more correctly the volume fraction, a given phase or constitutes in a material are in many cases one of the most important factors to define the characteristics of a material.

The wide variety of alloys and materials, and how the look under the microscope can make this seemingly trivial task very challenging. How to actually measure this is also a problem, but by using the ASTM 653 standard, at least this problem is solved. However, by traditional means, this is a labor intensive task why we introduce AI-assisted measurements, and still complying with the standard.

The ASTM 653 Standard

The ASTM 653 way of determine area or volume fraction is by applying a square grid of given size, for example 100 points, and manually count the number of hits. If doing this over a number of fields we get the statistical inclusion average. 

The standard says, that if the grid-cross overlaps with the edge of the object to measure, it should be counted as a half.

With our tool you always have the final say, and even though a well trained AI-model is close to perfect. This is also what the standard mandates.

When later searching for the images (or rater cases) you can search on any meta-data field or combination of data as you like, for example case with order number "425642" or all cases with customer "Volvo" in January 2018.