TESTING STEREOLOGICAL METHODS FOR THE ESTIMATION OF SPATIAL SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS BY MEANS OF COMPUTER-SIMULATED GRAIN STRUCTURES

The stereological problem for single phase polyhedral structures is di scussed. Modified shape assumptions for the grains lead to improved es timations of the three-dimensional grain size distribution. Thus, the profile shapes carry additional information about the grain size. In c ontrast to the usual method of estimating the size distribution of the grains a new technique is proposed, exploiting size and shape informa tion of the profiles observed in planar sections. The proposed methods are compared with the solution of the classical Wicksell corpuscle pr oblem. For this reason, 3D microstructures are analyzed which have bee n simulated using the Monte Carlo method (or Q-state Potts model) of i sothermal grain growth. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights rese rved.