• International Journal of Safety
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.17-22
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• 2008

Recent developments in contactless, air-coupled sensing of seismic and ultrasonic waves in concrete structures are presented. Contactless sensing allows for rapid, efficient and consistent data collection over a large volume of material. Two inspection applications are discussed: air-coupled impact-echo scanning of concrete structures using seismically generated waves, and air-coupled imaging of internal damages in concrete using ultrasonic tomography. The first application aims to locate and characterize shallow delamination defects within concrete bridge decks. Impact-echo method is applied to scan defected concrete slabs using air coupled sensors. Next, efforts to apply air-coupled ultrasonic tomography to concrete damage imaging are discussed. Preliminary results are presented for air-coupled ultrasonic tomography applied to solid elements to locate internal defects. The results demonstrate that, with continued development, air-coupled ultrasonic tomography may provide improved evaluation of unseen material defects within structures.

• 비파괴검사학회지
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.282-289
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• 2010

Most nondestructive testing techniques require good contact between the sensor and tested concrete surface to obtain reliable data. But the surface preparation is often very time and labor consuming due to the rough surface or limited access of concrete structures. One approach to speed up the data collection process is to eliminate the need for physical contact between the sensor and tested structure. Non-contact air-coupled sensing technique can be a good solution to this problem. An obvious advantage of the non-contact air-coupled sensing technique is which can greatly speed up the data collection in field and thus the damage detection process can be completed very rapidly. In this article, recent developments in non-contact air-coupled sensing technique for rapid detection of damages in concrete structures are summarized to evoke interest, discussion and further developments on this technique to a NDT research community in Korea. It is worth noting that the works in this article have been published in the types of thesis, proceedings, and journals. All published sources are cited in the text and listed in reference.

• 비파괴검사학회지
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• 제24권4호
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• pp.341-347
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• 2004

발전설비의 중요한 요소인 배관의 효율적인 비파괴검사를 위해, 배관내에 유도초음파를 comb 트랜스듀서를 이용하여 발생시켰으며, 유도초음파를 비접촉 방식으로 수신하기 위해 An(air-coupled transducer)를 적용하였다. comb 트랜스듀서의 요소간격과 이론적인 분산선도로부터 발생가능 한 유도초음파 모드가 예측되었다. 또한 예측된 모드를 수신하기 위해 각 모드의 이론적인 위상속도를 이용하여 ACT의 수신 각도를 결정하였다. 수신모드의 특성을 규명하기 위해 웨이블릿 변환과 2D-FFT를 이용한 시간-주파수해석을 수행하여 이론적인 분산선도와 비교한 결과, 수신된 보드는 이론적으로 예측된 모드와 일치하는 것으로 나타났다.

• Journal of the Korean Physical Society
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• 제73권10호
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• pp.1519-1528
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• 2018

The objective of the present study is the development of a comprehensive air chemical kinetic model that includes 11 species and 54 chemical reactions for the numerical investigation of air nonequilibrium inductively coupled plasmas. The two-dimensional, compressible Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the electromagnetic-field equations were employed to describe the fundamental characteristics of an inductive plasma. Dunn-Kangs 32 chemical-reaction model of air was reconstructed and used as a comparative model. The effects of the different chemical kinetic models on the flow field were analyzed and discussed at identical/different working pressures. The results theoretically indicate that no matter the working pressure is low or high, the use of the 54 chemical kinetic model presented in this study is a better choice for the numerical simulation of a nonequilibrium air ICP.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제17권1호
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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.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제20권3호
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• pp.257-262
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• 2017

This study aims to develop a signal processing scheme to accurately predict the thickness of concrete slab using air-coupled impact-echo. Air-coupled impact-echo has been applied to concrete non-destructive tests (NDT); however, it is often difficult to obtain thickness mode frequency due to noise components. Furthermore, apparent velocity in concrete is a usually unknown parameter in the field and the thickness of the concrete slab often cannot be accurately measured. This study proposes a signal processing scheme using guided wave analysis, wherein dispersion curves are drawn in both frequency-wave number (f-k) and phase velocity-frequency ($V_{cp}-f$) domains. The theoretical and experimental results demonstrate that thickness mode frequency and apparent velocity in concrete are clearly obtained from the f-k and $V_{cp}-f$ domains, respectively. The proposed method has great potential with regard to the application of air-coupled impact-echo in the field.

• 한국지반공학회논문집
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• 제32권1호
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• pp.19-33
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• 2016

강우의 침투가 사면안정에 미치는 영향을 평가하기 위해 강우의 침투해석을 수행하고 그 결과를 한계평형해석에 적용하는 안정해석 절차가 널리 사용되고 있으나 지반은 흙 입자, 물과 공기로 이루어진 3상의 물질이므로 사면을 통한 강우의 침투를 엄밀하게 해석하기 위해서는 물, 공기의 흐름과 흙의 응력-변형거동이 완전 연관된(fully coupled) 식을 고려해야 한다. 본 연구에서는 공기와 물의 흐름이 사면의 역학적 안정에 미치는 영향을 연구하기 위하여 우리나라에 널리 분포하는 풍화잔류토 사면에 대하여 3상이 연동된 흐름해석을 수행하였다. 강우침투가 사면안정에 미치는 영향을 평가하기 위하여 강도감소법에 의한 사면 안정해석을 수행하였다. 해석결과에 의하면 침투하는 강우가 공기를 밀어내 공기의 흐름이 발생하고 공기압이 증가하였다. 이러한 간극에서의 물과 공기의 상호작용은 사면의 응력-변형거동에 영향을 미쳐 공기의 흐름을 고려하지 않은 흙 입자-물의 연관해석의 결과와는 다른 사면안정 거동을 보였다.

• 설비공학논문집
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• 제24권4호
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• pp.351-357
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• 2012

To reduce the summertime cooling load of a plant factory, a concept design was performed for the double skin window which utilizes the low temperature air from a ground coupled heat exchanger. The design parameters were selected as the number of cavity air inlet, the cavity thickness, the location of cavity air inlet, and the configuration of cavity air outlet. A parametric study was conducted in a systematic way to evaluate the heat transfer characteristics of the double skin window. As the number of cavity air inlet and the cavity thickness increase, the heat flux from outside air to indoor air was decreased. The effect of the location of cavity air inlet was not significant and the larger cavity air outlet area gave us relatively better heat blocking performance from outside hot air. This study demonstrated that it is possible to develop an improved double skin window by utilizing a ground coupled heat exchanger.

• 비파괴검사학회지
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• 제29권3호
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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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.195-205
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• 2023

The contact acoustic emission (AE) monitoring system is time-consuming and costly for monitoring concrete structures in large scope, in addition, the great difference in acoustic impedance between air and concrete makes the detection process inconvenient. In this work, we broaden the conventional AE source localization method for concrete to the non-contact (air-coupled) micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) microphones array, which collects the energy-rich leaky Rayleigh waves, instead of the relatively weak P-wave. Finite element method was used for the numerical simulations, it is shown that the propagation velocity of leaky Rayleigh waves traveling along the air-concrete interface agrees with the corresponding theoretical properties of Lamb wave modes in an infinite concrete slab. This structures the basis for implementing a non-contact AE source location approach. Based on the experience gained from numerical studies, experimental studies on the proposed air-coupled AE source location in concrete slabs are carried out. Finally, it is shown that the locating map of AE source can be determined using the proposed system, and the accuracy is sufficient for most field monitoring applications on large plate-like concrete structures, such as tunnel lining and bridge deck.