Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398

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Advanced Powder Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apt

Original Research Paper

Stereological correction method based on sectional texture analysis for

the liberation distribution of binary particle systems
Takao Ueda , Tatsuya Oki, Shigeki Koyanaka
Environmental Management Research Institute, Department of Energy and Environment, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 16-1
Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8569, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Accurate assessment of liberation state of ore sample is important in mineral processing. In practice, the
Received 22 June 2016 ore sample is mounted in resin, sectioned, and polished before its liberation state is measured by sec-
Received in revised form 24 February 2017 tional analysis. This approach typically overestimates the degree of liberation in two-dimensional (2D)
Accepted 8 March 2017
measurements. Several models have been proposed to overcome this stereological bias and correct this
Available online 22 March 2017
error in well-examined samples. However, their versatility remains poorly understood. Herein, a stereo-
logical correction method was developed for the liberation distribution. First, the complexity of particle
Keywords:
sectional texture was assessed using the fractal dimension of the image intensity. Next, the magnitude of
Stereological bias
Stereological correction
stereological bias and 2D measureable parameters such as fractal dimension was correlated by an
Texture analysis all-encompassing simulation of various texture types. Finally, stereological correction indices were
Fractal dimension exclusively estimated from 2D measureable parameters obtained through the correlation. This model
Liberation distribution exhibited high versatility based on the all-encompassing simulation. The model was validated using nine
different irregularly shaped binary particle systems and assessed using areal difference and maximum
difference between liberation distribution curves in two and three dimensions. This error indices
improved by approximately 80% for the former error index and 90% for the latter index.
2017 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder
Technology Japan. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction such as mineral liberation analyzer [2]. This 2D approach inevitably

In mineral processing, comminution mainly aims at freeing
valuable minerals from gangue to enhance the efficiency of the sub-
sequent selection and consequently, the total efficiency of the
entire process. The fraction of liberated particles with respect to
the total amount of the phase corresponds to the degree of liberation,
which is an important index in the assessment of the comminution
process. In practice, a perfect liberation is not always necessary but
particles composed of the phase of interest may need to achieve a
certain content (e.g., 95%). Therefore, the degree of liberation and
the liberation distribution, which represents the distribution of the
content of phase of interest are of great concern.
In general, the liberation distribution, also known as volume
grade distribution and liberation spectrum, is obtained by 2D examin-
ing resin mounted, sectioned, and polished particle sections. These
two-dimensional (2D) observations are conducted using a tradi-
tional microscope [1] or scanning electron microscopy/energy-
dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX) based automatic analyzer
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: t-ueda@aist.go.jp (T. Ueda).
result in stereological bias in the liberation distribution, because a
liberated particle always appears like a liberated section, whereas
a multi-phased particle may appear as liberated section [3].
Some approaches have been proposed to avoid this error and
directly obtain three-dimensional (3D) liberation information by
X-ray computed tomography [48] and serial particle sectioning
[911]. These approaches have proven successful at a research
stage but have not been applied because of inadequate analysis
speed, cost, and accuracy of mineral identification. Therefore, stere-
ological correction, in which the 3D liberation distribution is esti-
mated from 2D data obtainable by sectional analysis, has
attracted extensive interest.
Miller and Lin [11] and King and Schneider [12] proposed a cor-
rection method converting 11 or 12 classes of 2D liberation distri-
bution into their 3D counterparts using a kernel function. This
method requires a separation test with a high degree of accuracy
to determine the kernel function. Given that the kernel function
may be influenced by the particles texture and being unrealistic
to determine the kernel for each mineral sample, a systematic
study on the influence of the particle texture on the kernel function
is required. Gay and Morrison [8] took another approach to

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apt.2017.03.007
0921-8831/ 2017 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.
1392 T. Ueda et al. / Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398
determine the kernel function. The relationship between the line
assessment (1D) and the area assessment (2D) is applied to esti-
mate the kernel function to determine the 3D liberation from the
area assessment. This method enables us to obtain all the parame-
ters from sectional analysis without a separation test. However,
further study is necessary for the relationship between the kernel
functions of 1D to 2D and 2D to 3D.
Barbery [13] established a correction method using particle
structure models of the Poisson mosaic and the Boolean and parti-
cle shape model based on the line assessment. From the probability
calculation using these models, four parameters, viz. grade, unifor-
mity of particle composition, the liberation functions of two phases
are determined. The 3D liberation distribution is estimated using
the four parameters with the gamma function. This approach
enables us to obtain all the parameters from the sectional analysis.
According to the validation study using the hematite-quartz ore,
the estimated degrees of liberation successfully fit the 3D values
[13].
Gay has produced a remarkable achievement in this topic and
proposed many correction models [8,14]. His representative model
is summarized and validated in Ref. [15]. The section feature of
each particle is assessed by 18 parameters: phase area, distance
of two pixels, area of three pixels triangle, perimeter, and surface
area with the combination of two phases. The particles are allo-
cated to the twelve classes of 3D liberation distribution with satis-
fying the nine stereological equations. An objective function is
used to minimize the error in the equations. It may be the most
accepted method currently. Further validation studies are expected
for the models applicability to particle systems with various types
of liberation distributions.
The stereological bias has strong association with the internal
structure of particles [9,16]. Recently, it was found that the feature
of 3D internal structure of particles that controls the stereological
bias can be estimated by 2D texture analysis of the particle sec-
tions [17]. A correction method based on this knowledge has been
established [18]. First, a database of the association between the
stereological bias and the 2D sectional information was established
by a series of encompassing simulations on various types of binary
particle models. Second, the texture of sample particle sections
was assessed by a texture analysis method (e.g., a fractal dimen-
sion [17]), and the stereological bias was estimated by the data-
base. Third, the 3D degree of liberation was predicted using the
estimated stereological bias and the measured 2D degree of liber-
ation. In this method, the stereological bias on the degree of liber-
ation (0% or 100% of mineral of interest) was investigated, and as
an extension, that of the liberation distribution (0100% of mineral
of interest) was examined and its correction method was proposed
in this study.
In particular, a series of stereological bias analyses were con-
ducted using more than one million particles with 1,470 different
textures. Next, correlations were calculated between the stereolog-
ical bias and 2D measureable parameters for 12 classes of libera-
tion distribution. Finally, a stereological correction model was
proposed for the liberation distribution and validated using nine
types of irregularly shaped particles, thereby establishing the ver-
satility of the stereological correction method for the liberation
distribution and making it applicable to various particles.
2. Methodology
2.1. Binary particle modeling
Binary particles comprising a core phase A and matrix phase B
were modeled by a known procedure [19]. Briefly, we observe
the following:
(A) 7463 spherical particles with diameters ranging from 1.0 to
2.0 were generated at random positions in a cuboid
(30
30
15) and packed in freefall by the Discrete Ele-
ment Method (DEM) [20] (Fig. 1), implemented in the open
source software ESyS-Particle [21].
(B) Spherical phase A elements with a diameter (dA ) and a vol-
ume fraction (F 0v ) (the ratio of total volume of the phase A
elements to volume of the cuboid) were created at random
positions in the cuboid, independently from the particles.
Therefore, these elements could freely overlap with
particles.
(C) Particle domain overlapping with phase A elements were
grouped in the phase A domain, whereas the rest were incor-
porated in the phase B domain.
(D) Steps B) and C) were repeated 250 times with fixed values of
dA and F 0v but random phase A element positions to prepare a
large number of binary particles.
2.2. Volume and sectional area calculation
Two- and three-dimensional particle characteristics were eval-
uated numerically. For each particle, the volume (V) was geomet-
rically calculated using the radii and coordinates of the particles
and phase A elements. The particle volume comprising a propor-
tion x of phase A domain was defined as Vx. Perfectly liberated
particle volumes were defined as V lib lib
A and V B for phases A and B,
respectively. The 3D information was obtained for particles featur-
ing a height (H) ranging between 2 and 14.
2D characteristics were determined for sample sections with H
ranging between 2 and 14 in a step of two. The particle sectional
area (S) was geometrically calculated using the radii and coordi-
nates of the particles and the phase A elements as well as H. The
particle sectional area composed of a proportion x of phase A
domain was defined as Sx, whereas the perfectly liberated parti-
cle areas were defined as Slib and Slib for phases A and B,
A B
respectively.
2.3. Liberation distribution assessments
Fig. 2 conceptually shows the liberation distribution, which is a
cumulative fraction of total volume (or area) of particles compris-
ing a proportion x of phase A domains and the total volume (or
area) of particles. Right and left ends of the distribution correspond
to the degrees of liberation of phases A and B, respectively. In
this study, the phase A content was divided into 12 classes, in
Fig. 1. Spherical particles packed in a cuboid using DEM.
 T. Ueda et al. / Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398 1393

steps of 0.1. Three- and two-dimensional liberation distribution

parameters (K3D 2D
A ) and (KA ) are defined in Eqs. (1)(9). Eqs. (1),
(4), (6), and (9) show the relation between both the ends of liber-
ation distribution and degree of liberations in 3D and 2D, where
L3D 3D 2D 2D
A , LB , LA , and LB denote the 3D and 2D degrees of liberation
for phases A and B, respectively. In addition, F v and F a represent
the average volumetric and areal proportions of phase A domains
relative to the total particle volumes and sectional areas, respec-
tively. Note that F v is somewhat different from F 0v , since F 0v is ini-
tially given for generating phase A elements (Section 2.1B) while
F v is obtained as a result of binary particle modeling (Section 2.1C).
P P lib
Vxjx0:0 V
K3D0
A PM PM B L3D
B 1  F v ; 1
1 V 1 V

P
Vxji<x6i0:1
K3Di;i0:1
A PM ;
1 V
Fig. 2. Conceptual image of the liberation distribution. i 0:0; 0:1; 0:2; 0:3; 0:4; 0:5; 0:6; 0:7; 0:8 2
P
Vxj0:9<x<1:0
accordance with previous studies [8,11,12], as x 0 (liberation KA3D0:9;1 PM ; 3
with phase B), x 1 (liberation with phase A), and 0 < x < 1 in 1 V

Fig. 3. 2D liberation distributions based on sectional area and, on sectional number, and 3D liberation distributions for (a) F 0v 0:05, dA 0:7, (b) F 0v 0:25, dA 0:7, (c)
F 0v 0:25, dA 4:0, and (d) F 0v 0:15, dA 2:4. Insets show partial sectional images.
1394 T. Ueda et al. / Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398

P P lib
Vxjx1:0 V dure to obtain d is summarized as follows (see Refs. [17,18] for
K3D1
A PM PM A L3D
A Fv ; 4 more detail):
1 V 1 V

P (A) On each particle section, superimpose squares with sides

Vxj0:3<x60:4
K3D0:3;0:4
A PM ; 5 given by the maximum particle diameter (dmax).
1 V (B) Divide each square into n2 small squares with sizes
P P lib r = dmax/n.
Sxjx0:0 SB (C) On the small squares contained within the particle cross-
K2D0
A PN 2D
PN LB 1  F a ; 6
1 S 1 S section, place an imaginary 3D structure with width and
depth r and height given by image intensity. Calculate the
P
Sxji<x6i0:1 surface area of the 3D structure.
K2Di;i0:1
A PN ; (D) Define the sum of the image-intensity surface area covering
1S
a particle section as A(r).
i 0:0; 0:1; 0:2; 0:3; 0:4; 0:5; 0:6; 0:7; 0:8; 7 (E) Calculate A(r) for n 2 1; 50, and d obtained from Eq. (11)
P with a linear fit obtained by using the least-squares method,
Sxj0:9<x<1:0
K2D0:9;1:0
A PN ; 8
1S
logAr 2  dlogr C; 11
P P
Sxjx1:0 Slib
K2D1
A PN PN
A
L2D
A Fa; 9 where C is a constant.
1S 1S

where M is the number of measured particles and N is the number

of particle sections. Eq. (5) shows Eq. (2) for i 0:3, which corre-
sponds to the conceptual illustration in Fig. 2.
As shown in Fig. 2, 2D and 3D liberation distributions did not
match because of the stereological bias. At both the ends of liber-
2D0 3D0 2D1 3D1
ation distribution, KA P KA and KA P KA because the
2D degree of apparent liberation is always larger than or equal to
its 3D equivalent.
Leigh et al. [15] proposed two error indices to quantitatively
assess the stereological bias on the liberation distribution: the
degree of liberation of one phase (D1 ), and the maximum difference
between liberation distributions in 2D and 3D (D2 ). In this study,
two error indices were defined: the area enclosed by the liberation
distributions in 2D and 3D and both ends (E1 ); and the maximum
difference between the liberation distribution curves (E2 ), which is
same as D2 of Leigh et al. (Fig. 2). These indices ranged between
zero and one and vanished to zero for particle systems without
any stereological bias. They are calculated using the twelve classes
of K3D 2D
A and KA .
In addition, the liberation distribution was assessed using the
number of particle sections but not on area in 2D, as applied in tra-
ditional microscopy. In this state, areal parameters in Eqs. (6)(9)
were replaced by the numbers of particle sections.
The difference (Kdif 2D
A ) between KA and K3D
A was calculated as
follows:

Kdif 2D 3D
A KA  KA ; 10
where the upper indices such as [0] are omitted for simplicity.

2.4. Stereological correction method for the liberation distribution

An aforementioned section introduces the stereological correc-

tion method for the liberation distribution that was established by
the extension of the previous method for degree of liberation [18].
The texture analysis of particle sections using the fractal dimension
and the database establishment by the all-encompassing simula-
tion, which are the main components of the method, and the cor-
rection procedure will be presented as follows.

2.4.1. Texture analysis

The texture of the particle sections are analyzed using Kanekos
fractal dimension (d) [22]. Note the d is used for assessing the com-
plexity of the texture pattern of the particle sections and not for
the shape feature of particles nor the mineral phases. The proce-
Fig. 4. Isograms of error index (E1 ) which is the difference in area between 2D and
3D the liberation distribution curves. 2D liberation distributions are based on (a)
sectional area and on (b) sectional number. Points A, B, C, and D correspond to Fig. 3
(a), (b), (c), and (d), respectively.
 T. Ueda et al. / Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398 1395

d is 2.0 for the perfectly liberated particle sections, and it takes a lar-
ger value for composite particle sections with complex texture. It is
necessary to apply the consecutive rule of the range of n (n 2 1; 50)
through the modeling and the particle section assessment, because
d is influenced by the range of n to some extent in the composite
particle sections.
2.4.2. Database establishment
By using the binary particle modeling (Section 2.1), 1,470
types of binary particles presenting dA values ranging from 0.2
to 5.0 in a step of 0.1 and F 0v values ranging from 0.01 to 0.3
in a step of 0.01 were prepared. After 250 iterations, 1,457,000
particles and 1,079,000 particle sections were obtained and their
numbers were incorporated into Eqs. (1)(9) to calculate K3D
A and
K2D
A . Note there are several studies on the relationship between
the sampling particle number and the confidence interval of lib-
eration state [19,23,24]. In this study, an adequately large num-
ber of particles and particle sections were examined to
investigate the effect of stereological bias by ejecting the effect

Fig. 5. Isograms showing differences between 12 classes of 2D and 3D liberation distributions (Kdif
A ) as a function of the 2D measurable parameters of fractal dimension (d)
and area fraction of phase A (F a ).
1396 T. Ueda et al. / Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398

(A) Visualize the mineral phases of polished particle sections by

using existing methods (see, e.g. Ref. [2]), then binarize the
sectional image for phase of interest and the rest.
(B) From the binarized sectional image, extract 12 classes of K2D
A
and the parameters F a and d.
(C) Using the database and its data interpolation, Kdif
A is calcu-
lated from F a and d.
0
(D) Estimated 3D liberation distribution (K3D
A ) is obtained as
follows:
0
dif
K3D 2D
A KA  KA ; 12

where the upper indices (e.g., [0]) are omitted for simplicity.

Note that the simulation for constructing the database was con-
Fig. 6. Irregularly shaped particles modeled by geodesic grid [25]. ducted on spherical binary particle systems (Section 2.1). However,
it was confirmed that this method has sufficient efficiency on more
realistic binary particle systems that comprise irregularly-shaped
Table 1 particles and mineral phases [25]. This result implies the proposed
Conditions of validation.
method has sufficient robustness to the realistic particle systems.
Type Longest axis of phase Volume fraction of Number of phase The expanded correction method for liberation distribution was val-
A elements (dG) phase A element (Fv) A elements idated in this study.
1 1.0 0.032 2063
2 1.0 0.064 4125
3 1.0 0.094 6188 3. Results and discussion
4 2.5 0.034 132
5 2.5 0.067 264
3.1. Simulation results
6 2.5 0.098 396
7 4.0 0.036 32
8 4.0 0.072 64 Fig. 3 shows four examples of 2D liberation distributions calcu-
9 4.0 0.11 97 lated by sectional area and by sectional number and 3D liberation
distributions for (a) F 0v 0:05, dA 0:7, (b) F 0v 0:25, dA 0:7, (c)

of statistical dispersion caused by inadequate number of sam-
pling particles.
Through the abovementioned 2D and 3D analysis, 1470 pat-
terns of relationship among Kdif
A , F a , and d were organized as a data-
dif 0
base. Since there are 12 group of Kdif
A (from KA to KA ), 12 types
of the databases were established. These databases will be visual-
ized as isograms in the later section.
2.4.3. Stereological correction process
The proposed stereological correction process is as follows.
F 0v 0:25, dA 4:0, and (d) F 0v 0:15, dA 2:4, together with their
partial sectional images. In all the four cases, the 2D liberation dis-
tributions differ from the 3D versions, and these differences are
larger for the 2D liberation distribution based on the sectional
dif 1
number than for the 2D liberation distribution based on sectional
area.
Fig. 4 compares isograms of E1 for 2D liberation distributions
based on sectional area and that based on sectional number. These
isograms are depicted by the thin plate splines method [26] based
on 1470 plots of calculation results evenly distributed in the chart
area. Plots AD in Fig. 4 correspond to Figs. 3(a)2(d), respectively.

Fig. 7. 2D, 3D and estimated 3D liberation distributions for irregular-shaped-binary-particle systems: (a) type 2 with F v 0:064, dG 1:0, and (b) type 9 with F v 0:11,
dG 4:0. Insets show partial images of sample sections.
 T. Ueda et al. / Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398 1397

Table 2
Results of validations.

Type Fa d E1 E01 Improvement of E1 (%) E2 E02 Improvement of E2 (%)

1 0.0324 2.11 0.0131 0.00291 77.9 0.258 0.0222 91.4

2 0.0645 2.22 0.0227 0.00466 79.4 0.349 0.0239 93.2
3 0.0951 2.31 0.0307 0.00607 80.2 0.332 0.0541 83.7
4 0.0320 2.04 0.00590 0.00121 79.6 0.0676 0.00264 96.1
5 0.0642 2.08 0.0111 0.00235 78.8 0.126 0.00495 96.1
6 0.0972 2.12 0.0158 0.00285 81.9 0.169 0.00358 97.9
7 0.0314 2.02 0.00524 0.00167 68.1 0.0391 0.00581 85.1
8 0.0644 2.05 0.00937 0.00232 75.3 0.0741 0.00369 95.0
9 0.0970 2.07 0.0125 0.00194 84.5 0.103 0.00355 96.5

F a : area fraction of phase A domain; d: fractal dimension [17,22]; E1 and E01 : error indices of area differences between 2D and 3D liberation distributions and 2D and estimated
3D liberation distributions, respectively; E2 and E02 : error indices of the maximum differences between 2D and 3D liberation distributions and 2D and estimated 3D liberation
distributions, respectively; improvements in errors calculates as Ei  E0i =Ei 
100%.

Two conclusions may be drawn from Fig. 4. First, dA and F 0v influ- was difficult to obtain geometrically, the Monte-Carlo
ence the effect of the stereological bias on the liberation distribu- method with the solid angle calculation was applied [25].
tion. Both dA and F 0v affect the sectional textures, as shown in (E) From the sectional information, F a and K2D A were obtained.

Fig. 3, but they cannot be obtained directly by sectional measure- Then, by the texture analysis in Section 2.4.1, d was calcu-
ment. Thus, the stereological-bias-correction model requires lated from the particle sectional textures.
assessing texture features. Second, the 2D liberation distribution (F) From the 2D parameters (F a , K2D
A , and d), 3D liberation state
0
based on sectional area [Fig. 4(a)] gives a smaller result for E1 than (K3D
A ) was predicted by the stereological correction process
the 2D liberation distribution based on sectional number [Fig. 4 in Section 2.4.3. The predicted K3D
0
was compared with the
A
(b)], which implies sectional measurement based on sectional area
true value of K3D 3D
A . Note, KA was calculated as the true value
should be preferred over that based on sectional number, if we
of 3D liberation by the volumetric analysis of Sections 2.2
leave aside the effect of stereological bias. Note that, to clarify
and 2.3 with the Monte-Carlo method with the solid angle
the details of the trend of E1 , Fig. 4 contains the liberation curves
for 102 classes of the content of phase A as opposed to 12 classes. calculation. Of course in practice, K3D
A cannot be obtained
from the 2D particle sectional information. However, it
Fig. 5 presents isograms of 12 classes of Kdif
A as a function of F a
was specially calculated to evaluate the predicted value of
and d obtained from the series of numerical simulations. These iso- 0

grams were created by using the thin plate splines method [26]
and are based on 1470 plots of the database (Section 2.4.2).
3.2. Validation
3.2.1. Conditions of validation
The proposed method for stereological correction was validated
by using irregularly shaped particles. The simulation conditions of
validation are briefly remarked as follows (see Refs. [25] for more
detail).
(A) Irregularly shaped binary particle samples were modeled by
replacing the spherical particles and phase A elements by
irregularly shaped particles and elements established using
the geodesic grid (a technique modeling the surface of a
sphere or an ellipse with subdivided polyhedron).
(B) Fig. 6 shows a geodesic-grid particle with aspect ratio (the
ratio of length of the shortest axis to length of the longest
orthogonal axis) 2.0 and corrected sphericity (the ratio of
surface area of an ellipsoid with equivalent volume and
aspect ratio to surface area of geodesic grid particle) 0.95
as an example. This geodesic-grid particle is composed of
80 triangle facets and 42 nodes.
(C) Table 1 shows nine validation cases with three levels of the
longest axis of phase A elements (dG ) and three levels of
phase A volume fractions (F v ): 0.0320.036, 0.0640.072,
and 0.0940.11. A series of numerical simulations were done
as detailed in Section 2.1.
Then, the validation procedure is remarked as follows (see Refs.
[25] for more detail).
(D) 2D liberation assessment was conducted for irregularly
shaped binary particle system with similarly to Sections
2.2 and 2.3. Because the sectional area of irregularly particle
K3D
A that was calculated only from the 2D parameters.
3.2.2. Results of validation
The liberation distribution was stereologically corrected as
explained in Section 4.1. As example, Fig. 7 shows the 2D, 3D,
and estimated 3D liberation distributions for types 2 and 9
from Table 1, together with their partial sectional images. As
the sectional images in Fig. 7 show, the validation used binary
particle systems with particles of realistic shapes. The proposed
method corrected the stereological bias in the liberation
distribution.
After stereological correction, the error indices (E1 and E2 ),
which are calculated from the 2D and estimated 3D liberation dis-
tributions are denoted E01 and E02 , respectively, to differentiate them
from error indices E1 and E2 before stereological correction. Table 2
lists the results of validation for nine types of particle systems: F a
and d were calculated from sectional observation and subsequent
image analysis. The improvement in E1 , which is defined as
E1  E01 =E1 
100% and the analogous improvement for E2 , are
given and show the efficiency of the proposed method. Because
E1 and E2 are reduced by an average of 80% and 90%, respectively,
we conclude that the proposed method corrects for stereological
bias in the liberation distribution.
4. Conclusion
The results of this study is summarized as follows:
1. Two-dimensional liberation distributions based on sectional
area are better than those based on sectional number because
the former differs less with respect to the true 3D liberation
distribution.
2. We propose a method to correct liberation distributions based
on assessing particle-sectional texture complexity and using
the correlation between complexity and stereological bias.
1398 T. Ueda et al. / Advanced Powder Technology 28 (2017) 13911398
3. The proposed method is validated by using nine types of irregu
larly-shaped-binary-particle systems. The efficiency of the
method was assessed by using two error indices: a differential
area (E1 ) and the maximum difference (E2 ) between
liberation-distribution curves. The proposed method corrects
for stereological bias in the liberation distribution, reducing E1
and E2 by an average of 80% and 90%, respectively.
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