Grain size determination and classification using adaptive image segmentation with grain shape information for milling quality evaluation

Abstract

In this paper, authors described methods of material granularity evaluation and a novel method for grain size determination with inline electromagnetic mill device diagnostics. The milling process quality evaluation can be carried out with vibration measurements, analysis of the milling material images or well-known screening machines. The method proposed in this paper is developed to the online examination of the milled product during the milling process using real-time digital images. In this paper, authors concentrated their work on copper ore milling process. Determination of the total number of the grain, the size of each grain, also the classification of the grains are the main goal of the developed method. In the proposed method the vision camera with lightning mounted at two assumed angles has been used. The detection of the grains has been based on an adaptive segmentation algorithm, improved with distance transform to enhance grains detection. The information about particles shape and context is used to optimize the grain classification process in the next step. The final classification is based on the rule-based method with defined particle shape and size parameters.