A feature extraction algorithm of wax crystal and liquid phase crude morph in waxy crude

Wax crystal morph is one of the prime inner factors that influence the rheological property of waxy crude at low temperature. The normal way to identify wax crystal morph is to qualitatively compare the wax crystal images obtained from video-microscopy. To develop a mechanistic rheological model of a waxy crude, quantitative characterization of wax crystal morph is necessary. In this paper, the 2D entropy threshold method is used to segment wax crystal images, and the grain size, shape characters of wax crystals and the continuous liquid phase character are extracted through a statistic method. An improved discrete algorithm is proposed to calculate the circularity of wax crystals. In addition, a morphology method of calculating wax crystal growing region is presented to describe the distribution of the continuous phase in the crude.