Banding
The Banding Materials Extension features the characterization and measurement of banded or oriented microstructures, such as carbide banding in steel, in compliance with ASTM 1268 standards.

		Key Features
		Characterization and measurement of banded or oriented microstructures Automatic creation of detailed report of the banding characterisation, degree of orientation, band spacing and free path spacing. Standard supported: ASTM E 1268 Description: Assesses the degree of banding or orientation of microstructures Supported Standards: ASTM E1268 Measurement Types : Automatic measurement (interactive grey scale threshold setting, grid definition: line spacing x, line spacing y, boundary width) Report/OutputReport/Output: Spreadsheet (feature interceptions [1/mm], anisotropy index, degree of orientation, spacing center to center [µm], phase fraction [%], spacing edge to edge [µm], statistics: average, standard deviation, 95% confidence level)

Settings
In the initial step, all of the experimental parameters need to be defined by the user in the self-explanatory settings window. These include defining the measurement line spacing, as well as the boundary width of the measurement frame and thresholds.

Execution
Once these settings have been finalised, the resulting data is generated by clicking on the ‘Banding’ icon. This produces a detailed report of the banding characterisation, degree of orientation, band spacing and free path spacing.

Results – compliant to ASTM E 1268
The software accurately assesses the degree of banding or orientation of the microstructure, according to ASTM E 1268. Directly measured from the image, the number of feature interceptions, with the test lines either parallel or perpendicular to the deformation, are used to calculate the anisotropy index and the degree of orientation. A series of measurements on multiple images can be obtained and the data is listed in an overall results spreadsheet, which details average results as well as individual values.

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