MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF FLOWING PARTICLES BY IMAGE-ANALYSISTECHNIQUES

The guidelines which are at the base of the definition of a system cap able of operating on a slurry containing the solid particulate for its characterization are described. All the considerations have been deve loped with particular reference to the case of a granular heterogeneou s material in particular, the different research problems, making a co mparison with the case of static images, acquired under laboratory con ditions, are pointed out. Attention was focused on problems of acquisi tion and digital image processing to obtain information which is clean from noise and errors. The considerations and procedures analysed sho w general validity and can be applied to a large number of problems li nked to the ''on-line'' morphological characterization of particulate solids materials. Some results for morphological characteristics of le ad sulphide (PbS) samples are reported.