• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.41-45
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• 2006

The fabrication process of fiber placement system of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) requires real time process control and reliable inspection to ensure quality by preventing defects such as delamination and void. Therefore, novel non-contact inspection technique is required during the non-destructive evaluation in a fiber placement system. For the inspection of delamination in CFRP, various methods to receive laser-generated ultrasound were applied by using piezoelectric transducer, air-coupled transducer, wavelet transform and scanning laser ultrasonic technique. Laser-generated ultrasound was received with a conventional piezoelectric sensor in contacting manner. Then signal characteristics due to defects were analyzed to find a factor for detecting defects. Air-coupled transducer was used for reception of laser-generated guided wave using linear slit array in order to generate high frequency guided wave. And line scan technique was used to confirm the capability of on-line application. The high frequency component of laser-generated guided wave received with piezoelectric sensor disappeared after propagating through delamination region. Nevertheless, it was failed to receive high frequency guided wave in using air-coupled transducer. The first peak of the frequency spectrum under 100kHz in the delamination region is higher than in the sound region. By using this feature, the line scanned frequency data were acquired in fully non-contact generation and reception of ultrasound. This method was proved as useful technique for detecting delamination in CFRP.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.235-241
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• 2009

Composite wood materials are very sensitive to water and inspection without any coupling medium of a liquid is really needed to wood materials due to the permeation of coupling medium such as water. However, air-coupled ultrasound has obvious advantages over water-coupled experimentation compared with conventional C-scanner. In this work, it is desirable to perform contact-less nondestructive evaluation to assess wood material homogeneity. A wood material was nondestructively characterized with non-contact and contact modes to measure ultrasonic velocity using automated data acquisition software. We have utilized a proposed peak-delay measurement method. Also through transmission mode was performed because of the main limitation for air-coupled transducers, which is the acoustic impedance mismatch between most materials and air. The variation of ultrasonic velocity was found to be somewhat difference due to air-coupled limitations over conventional scan images. However, conventional C-scan images are well agreed with increasing the resin-infiltrated time as expected. Finally, we have developed a measurement system of an ultrasonic velocity based on data acquisition software for obtaining ultrasonic quantitative data for correlation with C-scan images.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.341-345
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• 2010

The NAUT(Non contact Air coupled Ultrasonic Testing) is one of the ultrasonic wave inspection methods. It compensates High power ultrasound Pulser Receiver, pre-amp, air probe of high sensitivity in air to generate loss energy by NAUT methods. Generally, in case of ultrasound inspection, it applies contact methods by using couplant. However it can inspect of UT without couplant by this NAUT. The ultrasound transmission reception is composed in stable condition in NAUT. It can inspect high low material or the specimen of rough part, the narrow spot, too. The spot welding is applying the inosculation of automobile component, car body, all boards. The CFRP is necessity of NDE because of the solidity changes material according to lamella tearing. Therefore it checked on realization whether and commercialization in the spot welding and CFRP inspection that the NAUT would be applied them.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2016

Ultrasonic tomography is a powerful tool for identifying defects within an object or structure. But practical application of ultrasonic tomography to solids is often limited by time consuming transducer coupling. Air-coupled ultrasonic measurements may eliminate the coupling problem and allow for more rapid data collection and tomographic image construction. This research aims to integrate recent developments in air-coupled ultrasonic measurements with current tomography reconstruction routines to improve testing capability. The goal is to identify low velocity inclusions (air-filled voids and notches) within solids using constructed velocity images. Finite element analysis is used to simulate the experiment in order to determine efficient data collection schemes. Comparable air-coupled ultrasonic signals are then collected through homogeneous and isotropic solid (PVC polymer) samples. Volumetric (void) and planar (notch) inclusions within the samples are identified in the constructed velocity tomograms for a variety of transducer configurations. Although there is some distortion of the inclusions, the experimentally obtained tomograms accurately indicate their size and location. Reconstruction error values, defined as misidentification of the inclusion size and position, were in the range of 1.5-1.7%. Part 2 of this paper set will describe the application of this imaging technique to concrete that contains inclusions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.546-551
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• 2010

The objective of this research is to estimate the crack location and size of a carbon steel pipe by using a laser ultrasound guided wave for the wall thinning evaluation of an elbow. The wall thinning of the carbon steel pipe is one of the most serious problems in nuclear power plants, especially the wall thinning of the carbon steel elbow caused by Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC). Therefore, a non-destructive inspection method of elbow is essential for the nuclear power plants to operate safely. The specimens used in this study were carbon steel elbows, which represented the main elements of real nuclear power plants. The shape of the wall thinning was an oval with a width of 120mm, a length of 80mm, and a depth of 5mm. The L(0,1) and L(0,2) modes variation of the ultrasound guided wave signal is obtained from the response of the laser generation/air-coupled detection ultrasonic hybrid system represent the characteristics of the defect. The trends of these characteristics and signal processing were used to estimate the size and location of wall thinning.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.446-450
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• 2005

We have built a spherically focused, not using acoustic mirrors, capacitive micromachined air-coupled ultrasonic transducer. A flexible backplate of a copper/polyimide backplate is used, permitting it to conform to a spherically shaped substrate. The backplate is patterned with $40-{\mu}m$ depressions having $80-{\mu}m$ center-to-center spacing. A $6-{\mu}m$ thick aluminized Mylar film completing the transducer is deformed to allow it to conform to the spherical backplate. The device's frequency spectrum is centered at 805kHz with -6dB points at 440 and 1210kHz.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.31-43
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• 2016

Applications of ultrasonic tomography to concrete structures have been reported for many years. However, practical and effective application of this tool for nondestructive assessment of internal concrete condition is hampered by time consuming transducer coupling that limits the amount of ultrasonic data that can be collected. This research aims to deploy recent developments in air-coupled ultrasonic measurements of solids, described in Part 1 of this paper set, to concrete in order to image internal inclusions. Ultrasonic signals are collected from concrete samples using a fully air-coupled (contactless) test configuration. These air coupled data are compared to those collected using partial semi-contact and full-contact test configurations. Two samples are considered: a 150 mm diameter cylinder with an internal circular void and a prism with $300mm{\times}300mm$ square cross-section that contains internal damaged regions and embedded reinforcement. The heterogeneous nature of concrete material structure complicates the application and interpretation of ultrasonic measurements and imaging. Volumetric inclusions within the concrete specimens are identified in the constructed velocity tomograms, but wave scattering at internal interfaces of the concrete disrupts the images. This disruption reduces defect detection accuracy as compared with tomograms built up of data collected from homogeneous solid samples (PVC) that are described in Part 1 of this paper set. Semi-contact measurements provide some improvement in accuracy through higher signal-to-noise ratio while still allowing for reasonably rapid data collection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.46-53
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• 2008

Ultrasonic C-scan technique is one of very popular techniques being used for detection of flaws in polymer matrix composite(PMC). However, the application of this technique is very limited for evaluation of defects in PMC fabricated by the automated fiber placement process. The purpose of this study is to develop a novel ultrasonic hybrid system based on nondestructive and non-contact ultrasonic techniques for evaluation of delamination in carbon/epoxy and carbon/PPS composite laminates. It was shown that the newly developed ultrasonic hybrid system based on dual air-coupled pitch-catch technique with ultrasonic scattering reflection concept could provide excellent image with higher resolution of delamination in PMC compared with the conventional pitch-catch method. It is expected that this ultrasonic hybrid technique can be applied for on-line inspection of flaws in PMC during the fabrication process.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.163-168
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• 2001

Due to aging, adhesively bonded and riveted aircraft lap joints can contain distends, cracks around rivet holes, fatigue induced flaws, and corrosion. It is required for the safety of aircraft to inspect these defects through the whole region of mint in rapid speed. Bond quality or adhesively bonded and riveted aluminum lap splice joints is investigated using non-contact remote ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE). Non-contact ultrasonic tests are performed using laser generation and air-coupled transducer detection. A Q-switched Nd:YAG laser and a periodic transmission mask are used to generate a selected Lamb mode. The Lamb wave is generated on one side of the lap splice joint, propagates along the plate, interacts with the joint and is detected on the other side by a micromachined air-coupled capacitance transducer. Analysis of recorded signals allows to evaluate the condition of the bond.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.597-602
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• 2004

In practical applications of guided wave techniques, it is very important but also difficult to identify the propagating modes, and it is preferred to generate and detect a single or less dispersive mode. Also the noncontact method is required in the automated field application. So this paper considers a non-contact guided wave technique with enhanced mode-selectivity, where a laser beam illuminated through arrayed line slits is used as the transmitter and the air-coupled transducer is used as the receiver. The line arrayed laser illumination is a wavelength matching technique that ran generate only a few modes. The air-coupled transducer detects the leaky wave of the propagated guided wave, and by tuning its detection angle we ran detect the selected single mode. Experimental results for a 1mm thick aluminum plate proved the usefulness of the proposed method, and especially it was shown that this method was powerful in the generation and detection of the $a_0$ mode.