• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.220-225
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• 2014

Generally, the nonlinearity of ultrasonic waves is measured using a nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$, which is defined as the ratio of the second harmonic's magnitude to the power of the fundamental frequency component after the ultrasonic wave propagates through a material. Nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ is recognized as an effective parameter for evaluating material degradation. In this paper, we evaluated the nonlinear parameter of Al6061-T6 which had been subjected to an artificial aging heat treatment. The measurement was using the transmitted signal obtained from contact-type transducers. After the ultrasonic test, a micro Vickers hardness test was conducted. From the result of the ultrasonic nonlinear parameter, the microstructural changes resulting from the heat treatment were estimated and the hardness test proved that these estimates were reasonable. Experimental results showed a correlation between the ultrasonic nonlinear parameter and microstructural changes produced by precipitation behavior in the material. These results suggest that the evaluation of mechanical properties using ultrasonic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ can be used to monitor variations in the mechanical hardness of aluminum alloys in response to an artificial aging heat-treatment.

• 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.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.20 no.5
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• pp.424-430
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• 2000

In order to develop an ultrasonic evaluation method for properties degradation of high temperature materials, a number of Cr-Mo-V steel samples were heat-treated and their damage mechanism was examined. Ultrasonic parameters such as velocity, attenuation, and more recently developed nonlinear acoustic parameter were measured. The nonlinear acoustic parameter was found to be most sensitive to material degradation mainly attributed to the precipitation of impurities in grain boundaries. When compared to the electrical resistivity results, the nonlinear parameters showed similar behavior. There existed a relatively good correlation between the nonlinear parameter and the fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) obtained by Charpy V-notch impact test. Based on the relationship between the FATT and the fracture toughness ($K_{IC}$), correlation between the nonlinear parameter and $K_{IC}$ was established.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.193-197
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• 2013

In this study, ultrasonic nonlinear characteristics in the heat-treated aluminum alloy have been evaluated. The nonlinearity of ultrasonic wave has been measured as the acoustic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$, depending upon the amplitude ratio of the second-order harmonic and the fundamental frequency component of ultrasonic wave propagating through the materials. The parameter ${\beta}$ measurement has been carried out with the reflected signals from the back-wall of specimens at the same plane using the contact-type transducers. The heat-treatment, aging, has been achieved at $300^{\circ}C$ for various durations in the range of 1 to 50 hours. The tensile strength and elongation are obtained by the tensile test and then compared with the parameter ${\beta}$. There is a peak of the acoustic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ on 5 hours aging and the ${\beta}$ decreases thereafter, exhibiting closed relations with tensile strength and elongation. Also, the heat-treatment time showing peak in the parameter ${\beta}$ was identical to that showing severe change in the ${\sigma}-{\varepsilon}$ curve. These results suggest that the acoustic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ can be used for monitoring the strength variations with aging of aluminum alloys.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.345-351
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• 2010

The oblique incidence technique for ultrasonic nonlinear characterization was studied in stainless steel 316L alloy subjected to high cycle fatigue. A dog-bone plate specimen was prepared to make different faitgue-driven deformation at each position where the stress concentration could occur in the middle of specimen. In addition to the normal transmission technique, the oblique incidence technique which is newly suggested in this study, was used to measure ultrasonic nonlinear parameter. The fatigued specimen shows higher ultrasonic nonlinear parameter than the virgin specimen for both techniques. Ultrasonic nonlinear parameter highly increases in the middle of test specimen where the stress concentration existes. Relative nonlinear parameter has strong correlation with fatigue damage. Consequently, the oblique incidence technique with longitudinal wave can be potential to characterize high cycle fatigue damage.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.251-257
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• 2015

In ultrasonic nonlinear parameter measurement using the fast Fourier transform(FFT) of tone-burst signals, the side lobe and leakage on spectrum because of finite time and non-periodicity of signals makes it difficult to measure the harmonic magnitudes accurately. The window function made it possible to resolve this problem. In this study, the effect of the Hanning and Turkey window functions on the experimental measurement of nonlinear parameters was analyzed. In addition, the effect of changes in tone burst signal number with changes in the window function on the experimental measurement was analyzed. The result for both window functions were similar and showed that they enabled reliable nonlinear parameter measurement. However, in order to restore original signal amplitude, the amplitude compensation coefficient should be considered for each window function. On a separate note, the larger number of tone bursts was advantageous for stable nonlinear parameter measurement, but this effect was more advantageous in the case of the Hanning window than the Tukey window.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.145-152
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• 2010

This study evaluated the fatigue degradation in a SUS316L specimen using the nonlinear ultrasonic method. The nonlinearity of the ultrasonic wave was estimated by a relative nonlinear parameter defined as the ratio of the amplitudes for the fundamental wave to the second harmonic wave. In the experiment, a measurement system with contact transducers was constructed; reliable measurements were assured by keeping measurement conditions consistent and reducing extra harmonics generated in the measurement system. Two types of SUS316L specimen were used in experiments; a rotating bar fatigue specimen and a tensile fatigue specimen. The fatigue condition used was high cycle fatigue. The former specimen had a cylindrical shape and was used to observe the change in the nonlinear parameter after fatigue accumulation in a specimen. The latter was a plate-shaped specimen and was used to confirm the change in the nonlinear parameter at the position where the fatigue stress was concentrated. The measured nonlinear parameter showed a strong correlation to the damage level in both fatigue tests.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.10
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• pp.1133-1137
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• 2014

The ultrasonic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ is generally known as an effective parameter for evaluating material degradation. Thus far, most research has been conducted using a contact method. However, since measurement by this contact method is affected by the contact conditions between the transducer and the specimen, additional devices are required to maintain the contact conditions stable during the measurement. To avoid this inconvenience, this paper proposes a noncontact method. In this study, only the receiver was replaced with a noncontact receiver, and then, the ultrasonic nonlinear parameters measured by the newly developed noncontact receiver were compared with those measured by the contact receiver. Results obtained using both these receivers for heat-treated aluminum alloy specimens showed good agreement. From this result, we can confirm that the ultrasonic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ can be measured using the proposed noncontact ultrasonic method.