TY - JOUR A1 - Tsamos, Athanasios A1 - Evsevleev, Sergei A1 - Fioresi, R. A1 - Faglioni, F. A1 - Bruno, Giovanni T1 - A novel iterative algorithm to improve segmentations with deep convolutional neural networks trained with synthetic X-ray computed tomography data (i.S.Sy.Da.T.A) JF - Computational Materials Science N2 - We propose a novel iterative segmentation algorithm (i.S.Sy.Da.T.A: Iterative Segmentation Synthetic Data Training Algorithm) employing Deep Convolutional Neural Networks and synthetic training data for X-ray tomographic reconstructions of complex microstructures. In our method, we reinforce the synthetic training data with experimental XCT datasets that were automatically segmented in the previous iteration. This strategy produces better segmentations in successive iterations. We test our algorithm with experimental XCT re constructions of a 6-phase Al-Si Matrix Composite reinforced with ceramic fibers and particles. We perform the analysis in 3D with a special network architecture that demonstrates good generalization with synthetic training data. We show that our iterative algorithm returns better segmentations compared to the standard single training approach. More specifically, phases possessing similar attenuation coefficients can be better segmented: for Al2O3 fibers, SiC particles, and Intermetallics, we see an increase of the Dice score with respect to the classic approach: from 0.49 to 0.54, from 0.66 to 0.72, and from 0.55 to 0.66 respectively. Furthermore, the overall Dice score increases from 0.77 to 0.79. The methods presented in this work are also applicable to other materials and imaging techniques. KW - Metal matrix composites (MMC) KW - Multi-phase materials KW - 3D imaging KW - Dice score KW - Automatic segmentation KW - Deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) KW - Modified U-net architectures PY - 2023 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.commatsci.2023.112112 SN - 0927-0256 VL - 223 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-57482 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -