SR-CLD: Spatially Resolved Chord Length Distributions for Statistical Description and Visualization of Non-uniform Microstructures

This study introduces the calculation of spatially resolved chord length distribution (SR-CLD) as an efficient approach for quantifying and visualizing non-uniform microstructures in heterogeneous materials. SR-CLD enables detailed analysis of spatial variation of microstructures in different directions that can be overlooked with traditional descriptions. We present the calculation of SR-CLD using efficient scan-line algorithm that counts pixels in constituents along pixel rows or columns of microstructure images for detailed, high-resolution SR-CLD maps. We demonstrate the application of SR-CLD in three case studies: on synthetic polycrystalline microstructures with known and intentionally created uniform and gradient spatial distributions of grain size; on non-uniform microstructures from welding simulations; and on experimental images of two-phase microstructures of additively manufactured Ti alloys with significant spatially non-uniform distributions of laths of one of the phases.