Analysis of microstructures

Material properties are to a big extent characterized  by their microstructure. There is therefore a growing interest in the geometric characterization of microstructures, especially of very soft, brittle or highly porous materials, which are not accessible to conventional microscopic methods. The progress  in the field of  computed tomography with increasingly better resolution, larger image sections and faster reconstructions makes the acquisition of spatial image data interesting for many fields of application.

The volume images generated by micro computed tomography, which, in contrast to 2D images of cut or fracture areas, contain full information about the spatial microstructure, can be analyzed, modeled and visualized with the software MAVI (Modular Algorithms for Volume Images). MAVI is specifically designed for the analysis of the complex microstructure of materials (such as polymer, metal and ceramic foams, sintered material, concrete), but can also acquire and process three-dimensional images of other structures such as bones or snow. The software recognizes volume, surface, curvature integrals and the Euler number for the complete structure or for individual objects, finds anisotropies and preferred directions and determines their respective strength.