Transcript
Electromechanical Technologies
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Piezo Motor Technology Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, LLC Honeywell P.O. Box 419159 Kansas City, MO 64141-6159
December 2004
www.honeywell.com
© 2004 Honeywell International Inc.
Executive Summary
(coarse aggregate, sand crystals, cracks, etc.). The area and diameter of the identified void are then archived for later
Automated Imaging System for Concrete Quality
Advantages ACES provides the Missouri Department of Transportation with significant manpower
properties of the concrete sample as a
The Automated Concrete Evaluation
savings in the concrete evaluation process, as the automated system performs most of
whole. Following the completion of the
System (ACES) was designed to analyze
the scanning and analysis processes in a hands-off manner. In this way, the technician,
scanning and analysis processes, a report
a prepared sample of Portland cement
who would have spent 10-12 hours manually evaluating each sample, now spends
is generated in a format identical to that
concrete and provide estimates of the
less than 15 minutes preparing the scanning and analysis processes. The automated
provided by the manual process.
microscopical properties of the concrete
scanning and analysis frees the technician from other duties. In addition, many federal,
in accordance with the American
state and commercial organizations currently perform this concrete analysis process. In
Other availabilities include:
Society for Testing & Materials (ASTM)
the absence of trained personnel who are willing to perform this tedious process, such
C457-90 standard. ACES uses a 2-D
organizations are forced to send their samples to analysis labs for evaluation. ACES offers
computer-controlled stage, an industrial
these organizations a way to perform their own analysis in a more timely and cost-effective
grade inspection microscope, a fire-
manner. Further, ACES, once validated by the concrete industry, could become the new
wire color charge-coupled device (CCD)
ASTM standard by which concrete is evaluated across the transportation and concrete
camera, a personal computer (PC) and
industries.
Figure 1. ACES Concrete Analysis System
The system identifies air voids as small
Applications
Equipment specifications are as follows:
(morphological processing) and line
as 5 microns and extracts concrete
ACES was specifically designed to evaluate air-void structure of concrete samples
The fundamental image processing
profile segmentation and recognition. In
according to ASTM C457-90, using linear traverse method. As such, ACES can be used
steps involve: (1) capture of an image
each case, the “object” extracted from
in any application where the quality or integrity of concrete must be evaluated. This could
from the microscope field-of-view; (2)
an image is characterized with a set
include industries such as transportation, construction and U.S. military. Additionally, the
application of image enhancement and
of features which are used to uniquely
ACES software may be modified to perform concrete analysis using the ASTM point-count
segmentation techniques to extract
discriminate void regions from other
method, or any other customized analysis methodology requiring the identification and
salient information from the image; and
components of the concrete. Depending
quantification of concrete constituents.
(3) application of pattern recognition
on the particular segmentation technique,
techniques to identify and characterize
these extracted features are then used
voids. At the present time, different
as input into either fuzzy logic, neural
segmentation and recognition techniques
network or rule-based recognition
are applied to each image. These include
techniques to identify which of the
color segmentation and recognition,
detected objects are actually voids and
shape segmentation and recognition
which are background “clutter” objects
use in the calculation of the microscopic
• Summary of results from round robin testing. • Videotape of concrete partnership. • Flowchart of scan process and analysis steps.
customized image processing software.
component characteristics that will be used to calculate the Portland concrete microscopical properties of interest. All these system components are linked via a graphical user interface, which aids the operator in the image acquisition, analysis and review processes.
Background The Transportation Industry regularly evaluates concrete samples in a manual
A variety of industries could benefit from the technology developed under this cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA). These would include: • Construction industry - evaluation of concrete quality for buildings and roadways. • Software industry - modification and application of the software techniques developed
under CRADA for other imaging, surface profiling and pattern recognition
C457-90, which defines the air void
applications.
structure for freeze-thaw resistant
• Medical industry - modification of the prototype system for use with microscope slides
concrete. In this manual process, a
or use of the developed imaging and recognition techniques for the analysis of
concrete core sample is obtained from a
medical imagery.
section of roadway to be evaluated. It is
• Federal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration quality analysis of
process as described in ASTM standard
sliced and polished and then examined
concrete used for runways and the Department of Defense in evaluation of materials for
manually under a microscope to identify
hardened facilities.
the size and distribution of the constituent components. The ACE system was
Technological Information
developed to eliminate the tedious
ACES use a 2-D computer-controlled staging capability to move the sample under a
aspects of the scanning and evaluation processes, improve the efficiency and consistency of the scanning process and eliminate potential errors and analysis variances due to operator subjectivity. This technology has received a 2001 R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine, and a U.S. Patent Pending.
research grade microscope. The image acquisition system used on the prototype consists of a color CCD camera and a frame grabber for image capture and high performance PC. In addition, specialized image processing software is used to identify air voids and extract void characteristics that are used to calculate the Portland concrete microscopical properties of interest. All system components are linked via a graphical user interface which aids the operator in the image acquisition, analysis and review processes. Figure 1 provides a visual overview of the integration concept for the ACES prototype. Scanning Interface
Sample Information - Database Entry
