Morphological characterisation of cellular materials by image analysis

Physical and mechanical properties of metallic foams derive from their micro- and macrostructure. Unfortunately these foams have a very heterogeneous structure so that their properties may show a large scatter. In this paper image analysis has been used to determine size, morphology and distribution of cells in three aluminium alloy foams produced by means of different manufacturing processes. The study highlighted that difficulties deriving from cell cavity coalescence can be overcame by using the assistedwatershed method. The morphometric analysis of cells showed that cell size, shape and distribution are strictly related to the manufacturing process. The proposed and analysed method appears to be a useful tool to correlate cell morphology with the manufacturing parameters and then to tailor foam properties to given applications. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group.