Resolving gas bubbles ascending in liquid metal from low-SNR neutron radiography images
This provides a solution for researchers in materials science or fluid dynamics studying gas-liquid metal interactions, though it appears incremental as it builds on previous methods.
The paper tackles the problem of resolving gas bubbles in liquid metal from low-SNR neutron radiography images by developing a new image processing methodology, resulting in significant improvements over previous methods and reliable extraction of physically meaningful information under adverse conditions.
We demonstrate a new image processing methodology for resolving gas bubbles travelling through liquid metal from dynamic neutron radiography images with intrinsically low signal-to-noise ratio. Image pre-processing, denoising and bubble segmentation are described in detail, with practical recommendations. Experimental validation is presented - stationary and moving reference bodies with neutron-transparent cavities are radiographed with imaging conditions similar to the cases with bubbles in liquid metal. The new methods are applied to our experimental data from previous and recent imaging campaigns, and the performance of the methods proposed in this paper is compared against our previously developed methods. Significant improvements are observed as well as the capacity to reliably extract physically meaningful information from measurements performed under highly adverse imaging conditions. The showcased image processing solution and separate elements thereof are readily extendable beyond the present application, and have been made open-source.