• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.451-457
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• 2010

In the present study, the influences of grains and precipitates of microstructural evolution on the ultrasonic nonlinearity have been experimentally investigated. The prior-austenite grain and precipitate size are controlled by the variation in austenitizing and tempering conditions in reactor pressure vessel materials of nuclear power plant, SA508 Gr.3 low alloys. The ultrasonic nonlinearity was found to have strong correlations with grains and precipitates since the ultrasonic nonlinear parameter $\beta$ shows decrease trend with coarsening of grains and precipitates. Although the prior-austenite grain size increased, the $\beta$ changed little due to the effects of subgrains, packets and laths. For the preciptate effects, the $\beta$ decreased sharply due to decrease in $Mo_2C$ causing the coherency stain in addition to the precipitate size. The results in this study may provide a potential for characterizing the microstructural evolution, grains and precipitates, by measuring the ultrasonic nonlinearity.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.241-247
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• 2014

This study presents the ultrasonic nonlinearity of AISI316 austenitic stainless steels subjected to longterm isothermal aging. These steels are attractive materials for use in industrial mechanical structures because of their strength at high-temperatures and their chemical stability. The test materials were subjected to accelerated heat-treatment in an electrical furnace for a predetermined aging duration. The variations in the ultrasonic nonlinearity and microstructural damage were carefully evaluated through observation of the microstructure. The ultrasonic nonlinearity stiffly dropped after aging for up to 1000 h and, then, monotonously decreased. The polygonal shape of the initial grain structures changed to circular, especially as the annealing twins in the grains dissolved and disappeared. The delta ferrite on the grain boundaries could not be observed at 1000 h of aging, and these continuously transformed into their sigma phases. Consequently, in the intial aging period, the rapid decrease in the ultrasonic nonlinearity was caused by voids, dislocations, and twin annihilation. The continuous monotonic decrease in the ultrasonic nonlinearity after the first drop resulted from the generation of $Cr_{23}C_6$ precipitates and ${\sigma}$ phases.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.06e
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• pp.115-118
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• 1998

본 연구에서는 매우 작은 틈새를 갖는 미세 크랙을 초음파가 투과할 때, 크랙 면의 부분 접촉의 의한 새로운 음향 비선형성의 발생 구조를 제안하고 그 정당성을 검증하는데 목적을 두고 있다. 이를 위하여, 초음파가 미세 크랙을 투과할 때 부분 접촉 효과에 의해 나타나게 되는 파형을 반파 모델로 모델링하고 이를 통해 고주파 조화 성분(Harmonics)이 발생하는 원인을 제시하였으며 틈새의 크기와 음향 비선형성의 크기와의 상관 관계를 시뮬레이션과 실험을 통하여 확인하였다. 이를 통해 미세 틈새와 음향 비선형성과의 상관 관계를 밝히고 틈새의 크기가 증가해 감에 따라 음향 비선형성이 증가함을 확인할 수 있었다.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.751-756
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• 2010

Ultrasonic nonlinearity is very sensitive to changes in material properties. This paper describes the study of the correlation between heat treatment and ultrasonic nonlinearity by taking nonlinear factors into consideration. A modified formula was proposed for ultrasonic velocity. This formula indicated that the changes occurring in nonlinearity during heat treatments cause changes in the ultrasonic velocity. The experimental results show that the relative nonlinearity parameters calculated from the modified ultrasonic velocities and the ratio of amplitudes of the second harmonic and fundamental wave are in good agreement. The experimental results prove that heat treatment can result in changes in material nonlinearity. Moreover, the relative nonlinearity parameter calculated from the modified velocity formula is has a large value. Since this parameter has high sensitivity to changes in nonlinearity, it can be used to represent the relative nonlinearity change calculated in this study by using the modified formula for ultrasonic velocity.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.358-363
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• 2008

Ultrasonic nonlinearity has been considered as a promising method to evaluate the micro damage of material; however, its magnitude is so small that its measurement is not easy. Thus, in this study, we investigate the effects of such experimental system dependent factors in the measurement of ultrasonic nonlinear parameter by using contact PZT transducer. Experimental results showed that the effect of system dependent nonlinearity is reduced when the contact pressure and transducer input voltage are sufficiently large. These results will be very useful to find out the proper experiment condition to measure rather accurate nonlinear parameter.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.53-59
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• 2016

Ultrasonic nonlinear evaluation is generally utilized for detection of not only defects but also microdamage such as corrosion and plastic deformation. Nonlinearity is determined by the amplitude ratio of primary wave second harmonic wave, and the results of its comparison are used for evaluation. Owing to the experimental features, the experimental nonlinearity result contains system nonlinearity and material nonlinearity. System nonlinearity is that which is unwanted by the user; hence, it acts as an error and interrupts analysis. In this study, a bulk wave mixing technique is implemented in order to minimize the system nonlinearity and obtain the reliable analysis results. The biggest advantage of this technique is that experimental nonlinearity contains less system nonlinearity than that for the conventional nonlinear ultrasonic technique. Theoretical and experimental verifications are performed in this study. By comparing the results of the bulk wave mixing technique with those of the conventional technique, the strengths, weaknesses, and application validity of the bulk wave mixing technique are determined.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.215-222
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• 2017

In order to evaluate a stress state of concrete according to the change of tensile force of prestressed beam, improved nonlinear resonant ultrasonic spectroscopy(NRUS) method is proposed. This technique is advantageous to evaluate the stress state in initial state because the method shows much higher sensitivity than existing linear ultrasonic methods. The NRUS technique measure a nonlinearity parameter, which is calculated from the resonant frequency shift of ultrasonic wave related to the medium state, and the result is also closely related to the stress state of concrete. In this study, the nonlinearity parameter was measured with the change of tensile force to verify the close relationship between the two factors, and the effect of repetitive load cycle on the change of nonlinearity parameter was analyzed. In addition, sensitivity comparison with the linear ultrasonic pulse velocity method was performed. Through the experimental results, the possibility of NRUS technique for the evaluation of stress state in prestressed beam was confirmed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.77-83
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• 2006

Ultrasonic nonlinearity has been considered as a solution for the detection of microcracks or interfacial delamination in a layered structure. The distinguished phenomenon in nonlinear ultrasonics is the generation of higher-order harmonic waves during the propagation. Therefore, in order to quantify the nonlinearity, the conventional method measures a parameter defined as the amplitude ratio of a second-order harmonic component and a fundamental frequency component included in the propagated ultrasonic wave signal. However, its application In field inspection is not easy at the present stage because no standard methodology has yet been made to accurately estimate this parameter. Thus, the aim of this paper is to propose an advanced signal processing technique for the precise estimation of a nonlinear ultrasonic parameter, which is based on power spectral and bispectral analysis. The method of estimating power spectrum and bispectrum of the pulse-like ultrasonic wave signal used in the commercial SAM (scanning acoustic microscopy) equipment is especially considered in this study The usefulness of the proposed method Is confirmed by experiments for a Newton ring with a continuous air gap between two glasses and a real semiconductor sample with local delaminations. The results show that the nonlinear parameter obtained tv the proposed method had a good correlation with the delamination.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.101-106
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• 2000

This study deals with the relationship between the magnitude of ultrasonic nonlinear parameter B/A, sound speed of amount of fat present in biological media for measuring B/A system using a wide band ultrasonic transducer. To represent this case, mixtures of egg white and egg yolk were studied. Even though the differences in density and sound speed of the two egg components were within 1% of each other, B/A were increases parabolically as a function of the fat density, which is not in agreement with the Yoshizumi et al's suggestion. In skim milk that does not contain fat, both the B/A and the sound speed increase with the solubility. It is proposed that protein could affect these values.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.158-165
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• 2017

The physical shape of an ultrasound transducer has not been considered in previous studies of the photoacoustic saturation effect, where a photoacoustic signal's magnitude linearly increases as an absorption coefficient increases and it is finally saturated. In this paper, the effect of a spherically focused ultrasound transducer on photoacoustic nonlinearity is investigated. The focused ultrasound transducer's spatial filtering effect on photoacoustic signals is analytically derived considering the combined concept of a virtual point detector and Green function approach. The ultrasound transducer's temporal response (i.e., transfer function) effect on photoacoustic signals is considered by integrating photoacoustic signal values within the absorption area covered by a spatial resolution of the ultrasound transducer. Results from the analytically derived expression show that the magnitude of photoacoustic signals measured by a spherical focused ultrasound transducer shows a maximum at a specific absorption coefficient, and decreases after that maximum point as an absorption coefficient is increased. The origin of this photoacoustic nonlinearity is physically understood by comparing the ultrasound transducer's transfer functions and photoacoustic resonance spectra. In addition, this physical interpretation implies that the photoacoustic nonlinearity is strongly dependent on the irradiance distribution inside an absorption medium.