Wear Particle Profile Analysis

Microscopic size wear debris transported through oil-lubricated systems provides important information about the condition of machinery, in particular the state of wear. Experts extract this information to monitor the operation of the machine to ensure safety, efficiency and economy of operation. The paper describes the analysis of microscopic wear particles by using computer vision and image processing techniques. The aim of the work is to develop an automated system to classify wear particles and thereby predict wear failure modes in machines. An interactive image analysis system WPIAS is devised which is used to process and store the quantitative information of particle profile (size, quantity, shape and edge details) analysis. Further analysis on the stored data is also described which permits systematic morphological analysis of the wear particles.