• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.39-44
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to verify availability of the acoustic emission in-situ monitoring method to the internal leak and operating conditions of the major valves at nuclear power plants. In this study, acoustic emission tests are performed when the pressurized temperature water and steam flowed through glove valve(main steam dump valve) and check valve(main steam outlet pump check valve) on the normal size of 12 and 18". The valve internal leak monitoring system for practical field was designed. The acoustic emission method was applied to the valves at the site, and the background noise was measured for the abnormal plant condition. To improve the reliability, a judgment of leak on the system was used various factors which are AE parameters, trend analysis, frequency analysis, voltage analysis and amplitude analysis of acoustic signal emitted from the valve operating condition internal leak.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.461-466
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• 2005

Despite the major advances in the microvascular surgery with success rates of up to 98%, failure and vascular complications still remain even in the experienced hands. Failure of blood to flow across an anastomosis is usually caused by three factors: (1) Technical errors; (2) Undetected damage more proximally or via vasospasm; or (3) A clot or a thrombus. The success of a microvascular surgery depends on the severity of the vascular injury and, proper debridement of an injured vessel, and the failure rate of microvascular anastomosis in cases of trauma is higher as the thrombogenic possibility is increased by the endothelial damage. From January to November in 2003, 460 patients were underwent microvascular surgery(270 replantations and 190 free flap transfers) and re-operations were performed in 15 cases. Cases were reviewed by clinical and operative records. In these cases, causes of post-operative circulation insufficiency were identified as 9 vascular spasms and 6 thromboses at the previous anastomotic site. The average of re-operative success rate was 73%(60% in replantations and 100% in free flaps). In conclusion, through precise postoperative monitoring and assessment, immediate surgical re-exploration could be performed when a vascular complication is suspicious, the success rate of microvascular surgery would be increased more.

• Composites Research
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.49-55
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• 2011

The use of advanced composite materials in main structures of military and civil aircraft has been increased rapidly because of their considerable metals in high specific strength and stiffness. However, the mechanical properties of composite materials may severely degrade in the presence of damage. Especially, the high-velocity impact such as a hailstorm, and a small piece of tire or stone during high taxing, can cause considerable damage to the structures and sub-system in spite of a very small mass. However, it is not easy to detect the damage in composite plates using a single sensor or any conventional methods. In this paper, the PVDF sensors and AE sensors were used for monitoring high-velocity impact damage initiation and propagation in composite laminates. The WT(wavelet transform) is used to decompose the sensor signals. In the PVDF sensor and AE sensor signal analysis, amounts of high-frequency signals are increased when the impact energy is increased. PVDF sensor and AE sensor signal appeared similar results. This study shows how various sensing techniques can be used to characterize high-velocity impact damage of advanced composite laminates.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2003

A hot press method was use for the optimal manufacturing condition for a shape memory alloy(SMA) composite. The bonding between the matrix and the reinforcement within the SMA composite by the hot press method was strengthened by cold rolling. In this study, the objective was to develop an on-line monitoring system for the prevention of the crack initiation and propagation by shape memory effort of SMA composite. Shape memory effect was used to prevent the SMA composite from cracking. For the system to be developed, an optimal hE parameter should be determined based on the degree of damage and crack initiation. When the SHA composite was heated by the plate heater attached at the composite, the propagating cracks appeared to be controlled by the compressive force of SMA.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.107-113
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• 2001

This study was conducted preliminarily to develop the crack source location technique for plain concrete beam using acoustic emission(AE). Before the main experiment, the test of virtual An source location was achieved in plain concrete block. The sensor layout was mutually compared between triangular layout and rectangular layout. As the results of test, AE source location by triangular layout was evaluated more effective than that by rectangular layout. The specimen to apply he source location technique was man in total nine specimens (each three in 40 %, 50%, 60% of W/C ratio) which the experiment variable was the compressive strength level(W/C ratio). The bending loading method is selected by cyclic loadings to evaluate the degree of concrete damage. It is seen that Kaiser effect and Felicity effect exists through analysis of AE parameters in coming failure experiment. As a result of analyzing the felicity ratio(FR) values, it is shown that this values can be used for evaluating the degree of concerto damage. AE activity is started highly at the 70% of failure load without the compressive strength level. Thus considered by a index in constructing the system of the failure warning at application of the field structure. And the results compared the real cracking location with the source location has perceived by AE monitoring before it is appeared the primary crack by visual observation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.68-76
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• 2011

Acoustic emission(AE) has emerged as a powerful nondestructive tool to detect any further growth or expansion of preexisting defects or to characterize failure mechanisms. Recently, this kind of technique, that is an in-situ monitoring of inside damages of materials or structures, becomes increasingly popular for monitoring the integrity of large structures like a huge wind turbine blade. Therefore, it is required to find a symptom of damage propagation before catastrophic failure through a continuous monitoring. In this study, a new damage location method has been proposed by using signal mapping algorithm, and an experimental verification is conducted by using small wind turbine blade specimen; a part of 750 kW real blade. The results show that this new signal mapping method has high advantages such as a flexibility for sensor location, improved accuracy, high detectability. The newly proposed method was compared with traditional AE source location method based on arrival time difference.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.227-239
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• 2020

Despite proven effectiveness and accuracy in laboratories, the existing damage assessment based on guided ultrasonic waves (GUWs) or acoustic emission (AE) confronts challenges when extended to real-world structural health monitoring (SHM) for railway tracks. Central to the concerns are the extremely complex signal appearance due to highly dispersive and multimodal wave features, restriction on transducer installations, and severe contaminations of ambient noise. It remains a critical yet unsolved problem along with recent attempts to implement SHM in bourgeoning high-speed railway (HSR). By leveraging authors' continued endeavours, an SHM framework, based on actively generated diffuse ultrasonic waves (DUWs) and a benchmark-free condition contrast algorithm, has been developed and deployed via an all-in-one SHM system. Miniaturized lead zirconate titanate (PZT) wafers are utilized to generate and acquire DUWs in long-range railway tracks. Fatigue cracks in the tracks show unique contact behaviours under different conditions of external loads and further disturb DUW propagation. By contrast DUW propagation traits, fatigue cracks in railway tracks can be characterised quantitatively and the holistic health status of the tracks can be evaluated in a real-time manner. Compared with GUW- or AE-based methods, the DUW-driven inspection philosophy exhibits immunity to ambient noise and measurement uncertainty, less dependence on baseline signals, use of significantly reduced number of transducers, and high robustness in atrocious engineering conditions. Conformance tests are performed on HSR tracks, in which the evolution of fatigue damage is monitored continuously and quantitatively, demonstrating effectiveness, adaptability, reliability and robustness of DUW-driven SHM towards HSR applications.

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.317-322
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• 2021

When a complex load such as torsion, low-speed impact, or fatigue load is applied, the properties in the thickness direction are weakened through microcracks inside the material due to the nature of the laminated composite material, and delamination occurs. To prevent the interlaminar delamination, various three-dimensional reinforcement methods such as Z-pinning and stitching, and structural health monitoring techniques that detect the microcrack of structures in real time have been continuously studied. In this paper, the single-lap joints with I-fiber stitching process were manufactured by a co-curing method and their strengths and failure detection capability were evaluated. AE and electric resistance method were used for detection of crack and failure signal and electric circuit for signal analysis was manufactured, and failure signal was analyzed during the tensile test of a single-lap joint. From the experiment, the strength of the single lap joint reinforced by I-fiber stitching process was improved by about 44.6% compared to the co-cured single lap joint without reinforcement. In addition, as the single-lap joint reinforced by I-fiber stitching process can detect failure in both the electrical resistance method and the AE method, it has been proven to be an effective structure for failure monitoring as well as strength improvement.

• Composites Research
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.429-434
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• 2023

In this study, aimed at improving the existing acoustic emission sensor for real time monitoring, a macro-fiber composite (MFC) transducer was employed as the acoustic emission sensor in the gas leak detection system. Prior to implementation, structural analysis was conducted to optimize the MFC's design. Consequently, the flexibility of the MFC facilitated excellent adherence to curved pipes, enabling the reception of acoustic emission (AE) signals without complications. Analysis of AE signals revealed substantial variations in parameter values for both high-pressure and low-pressure leaks. Notably, in the parameters of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) graph, the change amounted to 120% to 626% for high-pressure leaks compared to the case without leaks, and approximately 9% to 22% for low-pressure leaks. Furthermore, depending on the distance from the leak site, the magnitude of change in parameters tended to decrease as the distance increased. As the results, in the future, not only will it be possible to detect a leak by detecting the amount of parameter change in the future, but it will also be possible to identify the location of the leak from the amount of change.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.349-365
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• 2018

The strain and acoustic emission (AE) signals of Pocheon granite were measured during uniaxial compression tests to investigate microcrack formation and damage. Crack closure, initiation, and damage stresses of each sample were determined through an analysis of the crack volumetric strain and stiffness. The samples experienced four damage stages according to stress levels: stage 1 = crack closure stage; stage 2 = elastic stage; stage 3 = crack initiation stage; stage 4 = crack damage stage. At least 75% of all AE signals occurred in stages 3 and 4, and different AE parameters were detected in the four stress stages. Rise time, count, energy, and duration clearly showed a tendency to gradually increase with the damage stress stage. In particular, the rise time, energy, and duration increased by at least 95% in stage 4 as compared with stage 1. However, the maximum amplitude showed a smaller increase, and the average frequency decreased slightly at higher stages. These results indicate that as the degree of rock damage increases, the crack size grows larger. The crack types corresponding to the AE signals were determined using the relationship between RA (Rise time / Amplitude) values and average frequencies. Tension cracking was dominant in all stress stages. Shear cracking was rare in stages 1 and 2, but increased in stages 3 and 4. These results are consistent with previous studies that reported cracking begins after samples have already been damaged. Our study shows that the state of rock damage can be investigated solely through an analysis of AE parameters when rocks are under compressive stress. As such, this methodology is suitable for understanding and monitoring the stress state of bedrock.