Abstract Manufactured sand often has granules with uneven shapes, which affects the quality of concrete. Hence, the detection of the shape of manufactured sand is important to ensure the quality of concrete. In this article, an image analysis system is used to detect the particle shapes, and the flow time aggregate angularity test is used as a reference to study the correlation between several particle shape characterization parameters and the flow time method. The result shows that the equivalent ellipse axial ratio Ae is the best index for evaluating the uniformity of manufactured sand shape. Repeatability tests with single-grade and graded materials showed that the maximum repeatability errors for three types of single-grade material are 0.5 %, 2.52 %, and 2.97 %, respectively, and the maximum repeatability error for the graded material is 0.85 %. When the particle shape is closer to a sphere, the repeatability of the measurements is high. Therefore, the image method particle shape detection system can meet the requirements for manufactured sand shape detection and effectively monitor the quality of manufactured sand for use as aggregate in concrete.