Introduction
Product crystal size is a very important quality parameter that customers look for when buying refractory raw materials. Material is graded according to chemical and physical properties. Crystal size is an important physical property.
Samples are brought to the laboratory, prepared for analysis, embedded in two pack resin, and polished to sub-micron levels. This allows the sample to be presented for measurement of crystal size. The sample is measured with a microscope at a magnification of 20. The operator measures in excess of 1000 points. The software then takes all of this data and gives the operator the sample crystal size and other important statistical information.
The Solution
Premier Periclase approached PTP to develop software for a new crystal measurement system that consisted of a microscope and a moving stage with the sample mounted it. The resulting software was developed using LabVIEW and included:
- Control of a Kollmorgen linear stage via TCP.
- Recording of distances between crystal boundaries
- Storage and analysis of data
- Report generation
- Intuitive user interface allowing control of the system and display of relevant test information
Success
The software developed by PTP allowed Premier Periclase to upgrade their crystal measurement system leading to improvements in the grading of their product and quality control of the crystal size.
"The software is working very well and everybody is very happy that we have results again!"Tony Kelly,Premier Periclase