Imaging Particle Analysis - Abrasives Applications

Superabrasives, such as micronized diamonds and cubic boron nitride (CBN), are used extensively in applications for cutting, grinding and drilling of hard materials. The effectiveness of a particular superabrasive material in a given application is completely determined by the particle size but, more importantly, the particle shape.

Diamond Superabrasive particles imaged by the FlowCAM

FlowCAM^® is ideally suited for the characterization of superabrasive materials. Unlike traditional automated particle analysis techniques (such as electrozone sensing and laser diffraction) which must assume a spherical particle shape, FlowCAM saves an image and over 30 different measurements for each particle. The VisualSpreadsheet^© software can use high-level image measurements such as "roughness" to characterize differences in particle shape that are not apparent using the older techniques. It can do this at a much higher rate of speed and larger sample size than traditional microscopy methods, yielding higher statistical significance for the results.