Characterisation of ALUHAB Aluminium Foams with Micro-CT

For quality assurance of aluminium foams the cell size determination is an important factor. Our micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) equipment is capable to image the three dimensional structure of these foams such as ALUHAB with a resolution in the range of 5-50microns. The CT parameters for the optimal image quality were determined by varying the size of the sample, the applied projection number and also the X-ray source operating parameters. The evaluation software was programmed in C language in order to determine the cell size distribution. The algorithm is capable to increase the thin cell wall contrast on the grey image and distinguish between the inner and the side cell walls, and to correct the artificial cell wall discontinuity after binarization. Future plans are to determine the distribution of the cell wall thickness, the Plateau border, the cell shape and the orientation factors.