Morphology and particle size (MaPS) exercise: testing the applications of image analysis and morphology descriptions for nuclear forensics
Abstract
Image analysis techniques have been applied and shown to be a valuable tool in nuclear forensics analysis. The interlaboratory exercise reported here has tested quantitative and qualitative approaches for characterizing nuclear materials. Particle size, surface features and morphology descriptions were compared by four laboratories on a common image set generated by Scanning Electron Microscopy and Digital Light Microscopy. Quantitative analysis of the image sets through the Morphological Analysis for MAterials software highlighted the strength of image analysis, but also that the application of the software alone can introduce significant bias in the analysis. Qualitative morphology descriptions following the process outlined by Tamasi et al. (J Radioanal Nuclear Chem 307:1611-1619, 2015) were compared with a discussion on the robustness and reproducibility of the results. Future work should continue to focus on proficiency and standardization of image analysis through continued exercises within the extended nuclear forensics community.
