Imaging Techniques Applied to Bulk Handling and Processing

The emerging interest in these last few years on the adoption of techniques for the image analysis to detect information on static or moving objects has enabled the adoption of these procedures possible also in industrial and research sectors which are not usually linked to those currently utilising image analysis such as the robotics vision, quality control, remote sensing etc. The possibilities of implementation of this type of techniques, in the field of particulate material characterisation, are high; especially if we consider the fact that through an image it is possible to obtain a quantity and a type of information which the great part of research procedures applied on these materials completely ignore (shape, morphology, textural properties of the particles, degree of mixing of different particulate components, etc.). In this seminar will be described and analysed, with reference to real industrial applications, different techniques and procedures able to realise a characterisation of single and bulk particles adopting a digital imaging based approach. The possibility to use such procedures in the field of particulate solids control is of particular interest today for the industry because image analysis techniques permits a lot of determinations adopting quite “simple” and “inexpensive” integrated hardware and software architecture if compared with other classical procedures actually utilised.