Control of Composite Material Structure by Fractal Methods

The interest of fractal geometry applied to the control of material structures is presented. It allows a fine classification linked to quality that would lead to a better managment of production. Samples are moulded under realistic processing conditions and their fracture surfaces are then observed by Scanning Electronic Microscopy(SEM). We have at our disposal SEM digital images 512×512 with 256 grey levels. After the discussion of the images value, we shall try to come up to results, using classical methods and fractal ones. This approach allows the comparison between the two methods, lightening the contribution of the last ones. The aim is to build a parameter quantifying automatically the images.