Morphological operations, planar mathematical formulations, and stereological interpretations for automated image analysis of concrete microstructure

Different morphological routines were tailored towards processing and analysis of concrete microstructural images captured by environmental scanning electron and fluorescent microscopy. These routines transform concrete micrographs form gray scale to binary scale, and remove most of the noise without significantly disturbing the features of interest (microcracks and air voids). Formulations are developed for quantification of key features of concrete microcracks and voids systems in plane. Stereological relationships are presented for development of quantitative information on (3-D) structure of concrete microcracks and voids systems in terms of (2-D) data generated from perpendicular sections. Image processing routines, in-plane formulations, and in-space interpretations were addressed to be transformed into algorithms to be built in newly developed computer software for microstructural analysis of concrete.