TY - JOUR

T1 - Automated optical image analysis of iron ore sinter

AU - Donskoi, Eugene

AU - Hapugoda, Sarath

AU - Manuel, James Robert

AU - Poliakov, Andrei

AU - Peterson, Michael John

AU - Mali, Heinrich

AU - Bückner, Birgit

AU - Honeyands, Tom

AU - Pownceby, Mark Ian

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

PY - 2021/5/21

Y1 - 2021/5/21

N2 - Sinter quality is a key element for stable blast furnace operation. Sinter strength and reducibility depend considerably on the mineral composition and associated textural features. During sinter optical image analysis (OIA), it is important to distinguish different morphologies of the same mineral such as primary/secondary hematite, and types of silico-ferrite of calcium and aluminum (SFCA). Standard red, green and blue (RGB) thresholding cannot effectively segment such morphologies one from another. The Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization’s (CSIRO) OIA software Mineral4/Recognition4 incorporates a unique textural identification module allowing various textures/morphologies of the same mineral to be discriminated. Together with other capabilities of the software, this feature was used for the examination of iron ore sinters where the ability to segment different types of hematite (primary versus secondary), different morphological sub-types of SFCA (platy and prismatic), and other common sinter phases such as magnetite, larnite, glass and remnant aluminosilicates is crucial for quantifying sinter petrology. Three different sinter samples were examined. Visual comparison showed very high correlation between manual and automated phase identification. The OIA results also gave high correlations with manual point counting, X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis results. Sinter textural classification performed by Recognition4 showed a high potential for deep understanding of sinter properties and the changes of such properties under different sintering conditions.

AB - Sinter quality is a key element for stable blast furnace operation. Sinter strength and reducibility depend considerably on the mineral composition and associated textural features. During sinter optical image analysis (OIA), it is important to distinguish different morphologies of the same mineral such as primary/secondary hematite, and types of silico-ferrite of calcium and aluminum (SFCA). Standard red, green and blue (RGB) thresholding cannot effectively segment such morphologies one from another. The Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization’s (CSIRO) OIA software Mineral4/Recognition4 incorporates a unique textural identification module allowing various textures/morphologies of the same mineral to be discriminated. Together with other capabilities of the software, this feature was used for the examination of iron ore sinters where the ability to segment different types of hematite (primary versus secondary), different morphological sub-types of SFCA (platy and prismatic), and other common sinter phases such as magnetite, larnite, glass and remnant aluminosilicates is crucial for quantifying sinter petrology. Three different sinter samples were examined. Visual comparison showed very high correlation between manual and automated phase identification. The OIA results also gave high correlations with manual point counting, X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis results. Sinter textural classification performed by Recognition4 showed a high potential for deep understanding of sinter properties and the changes of such properties under different sintering conditions.

KW - Algorithm

KW - Goethite

KW - Hematite

KW - Image analysis

KW - Iron ore

KW - SFCA

KW - Sinter

KW - Structure

KW - Texture

KW - iron ore sintering

KW - image analysis

KW - microstructure

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106430164&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/min11060562

DO - 10.3390/min11060562

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85106430164

VL - 11.2021

JO - Minerals

JF - Minerals

SN - 2075-163X

IS - 6

M1 - 562

ER -