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Abstract: Kaolin is used in many applications (e.g. paint, plastic and rubber) due to its unique properties, including fine particle size, brightness and chemical inertness. Properties can be improved by calcination, heating the kaolin to high temperatures inducing physico-chemical transformations. If calcination time is excessive, kaolin becomes harder and abrasive, due to mullite formation. This is detrimental to product quality; causing processing problems and machinery damage. If calcination time is too short, the kaolin is not fully calcined, becoming highly reactive, an issue for pharmaceutical applications. By controlling the exposure time to high temperature, such negative effects are minimised. Multiple hearth calciners are often used for this transformation, but their operating conditions and configuration make it difficult to determine kaolin residence time. To improve product consistency, trials were performed to measure the residence time distribution of an industrial furnace used to calcine kaolin. Titania, TiO2, and talc, Mg3Si4O10(OH)2, were used to individually dope the kaolin, Al2Si2O5(OH)4, and the concentration of these mineral tracers was detected using X-ray fluorescence. Talc was the preferred mineral tracer, with a mean residence time of 42min under standard operating conditions, with a throughput of 5.3tonnesh−1 of 0wt.% moisture feed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A combined interpolation – three‐dimensional level set method (3D LSM)‐based segmentation process is presented. The performance in terms of accuracy of the 3D LSM in the segmentation of throat regions from highly anisotropic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) volumes, with and without an interpolation step is evaluated. Qualitative and quantitative results from real MRI data suggest that performing interpolation, to reconstruct isotropic MRI volumes, prior to 3D LSM improves the accuracy of the segmentation results, compared to interpolation post 3D LSM and no interpolation at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A combined interpolation - three-dimensional level set method (3D LSM)-based segmentation process is presented. The performance in terms of accuracy of the 3D LSM in the segmentation of throat regions from highly anisotropic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) volumes, with and without an interpolation step is evaluated. Qualitative and quantitative results from real MRI data suggest that performing interpolation, to reconstruct isotropic MRI volumes, prior to 3D LSM improves the accuracy of the segmentation results, compared to interpolation post 3D LSM and no interpolation at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]