Welcome to the Amira-Avizo Software Use Case Gallery

Until March 2021, around 120 million coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infected cases and over 2.6 million deaths have been reported worldwide. […] Recent investigations have implied that face masks help to reduce the disease transmission and therefore slow down the growth of the epidemic curve. However, there are still ongoing debates on the efficacy of wearing masks […] since there is a general lack of information relating to the material structure of commonly used face masks.Read more

For decades, clearing and staining with Alcian Blue and Alizarin Red has been the gold standard to image vertebrate skeletal development. Here, we present an alternate approach to visualise bone and cartilage based on X-ray microCT imaging, which allows the collection of genuine 3D data of the entire developing skeleton at micron resolution.

Our novel protocol is based on ethanol fixation and staining with Ruthenium Red, and efficiently contrasts cartilage matrix, as demonstrated in wh... Read more

In biomedical research, a huge variety of different techniques is currently available for the structural examination of small specimens, including conventional light microscopy (LM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), microscopic X-ray computed tomography (microCT), and many others. Since every imaging method is physically limited by certain parameters, a correlative use of complementary methods often yields a significant broader range of inform... Read more

Enamel caries is a highly prevalent worldwide disease that involves the demineralisation of the outer tooth structure. In this study, we report the analysis of artificially demineralised human enamel sections (‘slices’) etched using lactic acid (2% v/v) in comparison with healthy enamel using correlative techniques of optical and electron microscopy, as well as scanning diffraction. Demineralisation of the enamel was characterised at the micron to sub-micron scale. The structure of the he... Read more

Unprecedented combination of resolution, field of view and contrast for the analysis human enamel carious lesions was achieved. Synchrotron X-ray micro-computed tomography revealed sub-micron details of enamel rod and inter-rod regions inaccessible by laboratory tomography. Successful segmentation and labelling allowed the extraction of enamel etching patterns and statistics. Correlation was obtained between synchrotron X-ray micro-tomography and FIB-SEM cross-sec... Read more

Scientists have for the first time captured the complex dynamics of particle movement in granular materials, helping to explain why mixed nuts often see the larger Brazil nuts gather at the top. This phenomenon, known as the ‘Brazil-nut effect’, has huge implications for industries where uneven mixing can critically degrade product quality. The findings could have vital impact on industries struggling with the phenomenon, such as pharmaceuticals and mining.

For th... Read more

Rapid implementation of global scale carbon capture and storage is required to limit temperature rises to 1.5 °C this century. Depleted oilfields provide an immediate option for storage, since injection infrastructure is in place and there is an economic benefit from enhanced oil recovery. To design secure storage, we need to understand how the fluids are configured in the microscopic pore spaces of the reservoir rock. We use high-resolution X-ray imaging to study the flow of oil, water and ... Read more

The high strength at moderate weight in combination with superior corrosion and fatigue properties makes carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) an attractive material for lightweight applications in aerospace. Nonetheless, besides several benefits, CFRP components also bear significant risks like a low resistance to impact damage. […] In this work, we present a multimodal approach to three-dimensionally quantify and visualize fiber orientation and resin-rich areas in carbon-fiber-reinf... Read more

The cleanliness of liquid steel is defined by the amounts of dissolved unwanted impurities and precipitated unwanted non-metallic phases.[…] Improving the cleanliness of the steel would mean a lower fraction of impurities in the final product. […] A novel approach, utilizing controlled synthetic inclusion/metal samples, has been developed to study the reactions between free inclusion-slag droplets and steel. The technique combines High-Temperature Confocal Scanning Laser Microscop... Read more

Continuous carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CCFRP) composites have been increasingly used in airframes and other high-end industrial products due to their superior mechanical properties such as high strength-weight and stiffness-weight ratios […] Additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) has shown potential to fabricate continuous fibre-reinforced composites with highly complex shapes in both 2D and 3D. Among them, Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printing melts and deposits... Read more

Lithium ion battery failure occurs across multiple length scales. In this work, the properties of thermal failure and its effects on electrode materials were investigated in a commercial battery using a combination of accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC) and multi-length scale X-ray computed tomography (CT). ARC measured the heat dissipated from the cell during thermal runaway and enabled the identification of key thermal failure characteristics such as onset temperature and the rate of heat g... Read more

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) technology has attracted considerable interest in large-scale metallic components, but porosity and low deposition rate are the two dominating technical challenges in WAAM of aluminum alloy. In order to effectively solve these problems, a novel method of hot-wire arc additive manufacturing is used to fabricate aluminum alloy. Systematic studies are carried out to investigate the formation mechanism of the pores, the macro/microstructures, as well as the ... Read more

Carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced significantly to limit the negative consequences of climate change. For this reason, fossil fuels must be replaced by renewable energy sources. However, wind and solar energy, for example, are sporadic sources and, thus, not inevitably available when needed. This results in periods of energy surplus and shortage, which are not necessarily predictable. Hence, energy storage concepts are required to compensate for these fluctuations, thereby retaining en... Read more

Decommissioning of the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor Unit 4 is a top priority for the global community. Before such operations begin, it is crucial to understand the behaviour of the hazardous materials formed during the accident. Since those materials formed under extreme and mostly unquantified conditions, modelling alone is insufficient to accurately predict their physical, chemical and, predominantly, mechanical behaviour. Meanwhile, knowledge of the mechanical characteristics of thos... Read more

In order to provide the population with consistent and science-based advice on preferred materials for face masks, we are characterizing the microstructure of different materials using X-ray microfocus computed tomography (microCT), and we use these datasets to simulate the pressure drop (i.e. measure for breathability). We validate our measurements with physically measured filter efficiency and pressure drop, and in this way, we try to develop a “virtual testing platform” for the charac... Read more

Carrier-based dry powder inhaler (DPI) formulations need to be accurately characterised for their particle size distributions, surface roughnesses, fines contents and flow properties. Understanding the micro-structure of the powder formulation is crucial, yet current characterisation methods give incomplete information. Commonly used techniques like laser diffraction (LD) and optical microscopy (OM) are limited due to the assumption of sphericity and can give variable results depending on par... Read more

Lithium aluminum titanium phosphate (LATP) is one of the materials under consideration as an electrolyte in future all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries. In ceramic processing, the presence of secondary phases and porosity play an important role. In a presence of more than one secondary phase and pores, image analysis must tackle the difficulties about distinguishing between these microstructural features. In this study, we study the phase evolution of LATP ceramics sintered at temperatures b... Read more

The non-metallic inclusions are mostly harmful to the propertiesof the steel products. The effective characterization of the size, morphology, and distribution of the inclusions in steel is a key issue to remove and control the inclusions in the Read more

Inconel 718 (IN718) is the most popular precipitation-strengthened nickel-based superalloy introduced by the Huntington Alloys Division of INCO in 1959 (Ref Read more

With the growing use of X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) datasets for modelling of transport properties, comes the need to define the representative elementary volume (REV) if considering three dimensions or the representative elementary area (REA) if considering two dimensions. The resolution used for imaging must be suited to the features of interest in the sample and the region-of-interest must be sufficiently large to capture key information. Polymer electrolyte fuel cells have a hier... Read more

The microstructure morphologies have been characterized by high resolution laboratory X-ray computed tomography in Carbon Fiber Reinforced Carbon and Silicon Carbide (C/C-SiC) ceramic composites fabricated by Gaseous Silicon Infiltration (GSI) from C/C preforms of three different architectures: 3D stitched cloth fabric; 3D orthogonal woven fabric; and needled short-cut felt. Each composites’ microstructure was influenced by the structure of the C/C preform. By incorporating tomography with ... Read more