• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.317-328
• /
• 2009

Current maintenance operations and integrity checks on a wide array of structures require personnel entry into normally-inaccessible or hazardous areas to perform necessary nondestructive inspections. To gain access for these inspections, structure must be disassembled and removed or personnel must be transported to remote locations. The use of in-situ sensors, coupled with remote interrogation, can be employed to overcome a myriad of inspection impediments stemming from accessibility limitations, complex geometries, the location and depth of hidden damage, and the isolated location of the structure. Furthermore, prevention of unexpected flaw growth and structural failure could be improved if on-board health monitoring systems were used to more regularly assess structural integrity. A research program has been completed to develop and validate Comparative Vacuum Monitoring (CVM) Sensors for surface crack detection. Statistical methods using one-sided tolerance intervals were employed to derive Probability of Detection (POD) levels for a wide array of application scenarios. Multi-year field tests were also conducted to study the deployment and long-term operation of CVM sensors on aircraft. This paper presents the quantitative crack detection capabilities of the CVM sensor, its performance in actual flight environments, and the prospects for structural health monitoring applications on aircraft and other civil structures.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.24-30
• /
• 1993

The necessity of ultrasonic inspection to detect the cracks in turbine blade is being increased as the forced outage of nuclear power plants have been occurred due to blade failure in turbine components. However, the complex blade root geometry causes the ultrasonic inspection technique not to be established yet and much effort is required to set up a more reliable inspection. In this paper, the ultrasonic inspection technique for flaw detectability, skew angle effect, identification of flaw and geometric signal have been investigated with a test block and discussed the interpretation of ultrasonic signal through the acquisition and analysis of RF waveform. The experimental results show that the proper examination procedure can be established. It is required that the skew angle is essential to decrease the effect of signals from the complex blade geometry. The present results of this study can be applied to the site inspection without blade disassembly.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.227-236
• /
• 1997

Quantitative analysis and imaging of elastic wave propagation are very important for the materials evaluation as well as flaw detection. The elastic wave propagation in an anisotropic media is more complex, and analysis and imaging become essential for flaw detection and materials evaluation. In the anisotropic media, the wave velocity is dependent on the propagation direction. In addition, the direction of group velocity is different from that of phase velocity, the direction of energy flow is not same as the propagation direction of wavefront (beam skewing effect). Especially, this effect becomes critical for the large anisotropic media such as fiber composite materials, and the results using elastic waves for those materials have to be analyzed considering the wave propagation mechanism. Since the analytical approach for the wave propagation in the anisotropic materials is limited, the numerical analysis such as finite difference method (FDM) have been used for these case. Therefore, 2-dimensional FDM program for the elastic wave propagation is developed, and wave propagation in anisotropic media are simulated.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.187-192
• /
• 2002

The open-connect type eddy current transducer for the flaw detection in continuously connected pipelines was developed. This eddy current transducer is for the on-line inspection of the tubes in industries, to which commercial encircling probes are not applicable. The excitation coil that consists of a ribbon type cable and a flat connector can be opened and closed on purpose. The sensing coils of this transducer are circumferentially arrayed near the outside of the tube wall but axially displaced from the exciter by about one and half tube diameter. In application to steel tubes, and the performance of this transducer was evaluated as a little behind those of magnetic saturation type in signal to noise ratio and flaw size decision, but usable to detect or to locate large size flaws in steel tubes. Surface cracks deeper than 19% of the tube thickness could be detected with good signal to noise ratio.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.170-178
• /
• 1988

An automated ultrasonic flaw detection system was developed for thin-walled and short tubes such as Zircaloy-4 tubes used for cladding heavy-water reactor fuel. The system was based on the two channels immersion pulse-echo technique using 14 MHz shear wave and the specially developed helical scanning technique, in which the tube to be tested is only rotated and the small water tank with spherical focus ultrasonic transducers is translated along the tube length. The optimum angle of incidence of ultrasonic beam was 26 degrees, at which the inside and outside surface defects with the same size and direction could be detected with the same sensitivity. The maximum permissible defects in the Zircaloy-4 tubes, i.e., the longitudinal and circumferential v notches with the length of 0.76mm and 0.38mm, respectively and the depth of 0.04 mm on the inside and outside surface, could be easily detected by the system with the inspection speed of about 1 m/min and the very excellent reproducibility. The ratio of signal to noise was greater than 20 dB for the longitudinal defects and 12 dB for the circumferential defects.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.548-553
• /
• 2011

The lock-in thermography was employed to evaluate the defects in railway bogies. Prior to the actual application on railway bogies, in order to assess the detectability of known flaws, the calibration reference panel was prepared with various dimensions of artificial flaws. The panel was composed of polymer matrix composites, which were the same material with actual bogies. Through lock-in thermography evaluation, the optimal frequency of heat source was determined for the best flaw detection. Based on the defects information, the actual defect assessments on railway bogie were conducted with different types of railway bogies, which were used for the current operation. In summary, it was found that the novel infrared thermography technique could be an effective way for the inspection and the detection of surface defects on bogies since the infrared thermography method provided rapid and non-contact investigation of railway bogies.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
• /
• 2001.04a
• /
• pp.61-65
• /
• 2001

A new flaw detection technique using by SH angle beam method has been discussed. The SH-wave is horizontally polarized shear wave and the surface SH wave has a characteristic of traveling along near surface layer. The surface SH wave technique is valuable for the detection of fatigue cracks at fillet weld heels which cannot be detected by other ultrasonic technique such as angle beam technique and The dispersion curves of it has simple characterization. In this work, using these beneficial chraterization, quality evaluation of spot weld with ultrasonic sound intensity of SH-wave passing through nugget area of spot weld are verified experimentally.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.87-92
• /
• 2006

This paper supplements shortcoming of radioactivity check by detecting defect of SWP weld zone using ultrasonic wave. Manufacture 2 stage robot detection systems that can follow weld bead of SWP by method to detect weld defects of SWP that shape of weld bead is complex for this as quantitative. Also, through signal processing ultrasonic wave defect signal system of GUI environment that can grasp easily existence availability of defect because do videotex compose. Ultrasonic wave signal of weld defects develops artificial intelligence style sightseeing system to enhance pattern recognition of weld defects and the classification rate using neural net. Classification of weld defects that do fan Planar defect and that do volume defect of by classify.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.46-51
• /
• 2010

A torsional guided wave was applied to detect a defect in petrochemical pipes. Phase and group velocity dispersion curves for the longitudinal and torsional modes of the inspected pipe were presented for the theoretical analysis. It was found through mode shape analysis that there was mode conversion when torsional wave is incident at an asymmetric defect. An artificial notch was fabricated in the pipe and the detectability was examined from the distance 2m of the end of the pipe by using magnetostrictive sensors. The relativities between the amplitude of the reflected signal and the size of the defect was examined. It was shown that the T(0,1) mode could be used for the long range inspection for the petrochemical pipes.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.20 no.10
• /
• pp.23-29
• /
• 2015

In this paper, we suggest a method of detecting defects by applying Hough transform and least squares on ceramic images obtained from non-destructive testing. In the ceramic images obtained from non-destructive testing, the background area, where the defect does not exist, commonly show gradual change of luminosity in vertical direction. In order to extract the background area which is going to be used in the detection of defects, Hough transform is performed to rotate the ceramic image in a way that the direction of overall luminosity change lies in the vertical direction as much as possible. Least squares are then applied on the rotated image to approximate the contrast value of the background area. The extracted background area is used for extracting defects from the ceramic images. In this paper we applied this method on ceramic images acquired from non-destructive testing. It was confirmed that extracted background area could be effectively applied for searching the section where the defect exists and detecting the defect.