• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.445-461
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• 2019

The ultrasonic guided wave-based technique has become one of the most promising methods in non-destructive evaluation and structural health monitoring, because of its advantages of large area inspection, evaluating inaccessible areas on the structure and high sensitivity to small damage. To further advance the development of damage detection technologies using ultrasonic guided waves for the inspection of welded components in structures, the transmission characteristics of the ultrasonic guided waves propagating through welded joints with various types of defects or damage in steel plates are studied and presented in this paper. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model considering the different material properties of the mild steel, high strength steel and austenitic stainless steel plates and their corresponding welded joints as well as the interaction condition of the steel plate and welded joint, is developed. The FE model is validated against analytical solutions and experimental results reported in the literature and is demonstrated to be capable of providing a reliable prediction on the features of ultrasonic guided wave propagating through steel plates with welded joints and interacting with defects. Mode conversion and scattering analysis of guided waves transmitted through the different types of weld defects in steel plates are performed by using the validated FE model. Parametric studies are undertaken to elucidate the effects of several basic parameters for various types of weld defects on the transmission performance of guided waves. The findings of this research can provide a better understanding of the transmission behaviour of ultrasonic guided waves propagating through welded joints with defects. The method could be used for improving the performance of guided wave damage detection methods.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.525-533
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• 2009

Emphasis in the paper is placed on describing guided wave successes and challenges for applications in aircraft and composite materials inspection. Guided wave imaging methods discussed includes line of sight, tomography, guided wave C-scan, phased array, and ultrasonic vibration methods. Applications outlined encircles lap splice, bonded repair patch, fuselage corrosion, water loaded structures, delamination, and ice detection and de-icing of various structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.75 no.4
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• pp.435-444
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• 2020

Ultrasonic guided wave testing is a very promising non-destructive testing method for rails, which is of great significance for ensuring the safe operation of railways. On the basis of the semi-analytical finite element (SAFE) method, a analytical model of 59R2 grooved rail was proposed, which is commonly used in the ballastless track of modern tram. The dispersion curves of ultrasonic guided waves in free rail and supported rail were obtained. Sensitivity analysis was then undertaken to evaluate the effect of rail elastic modulus on the phase velocity and group velocity dispersion curves of ultrasonic guided waves. The optimal guided wave mode, optimal excitation point and excitation direction suitable for detecting rail integrity were identified by analyzing the frequency, number of modes, and mode shapes. A sinusoidal signal modulated by a Hanning window with a center frequency of 25 kHz was used as the excitation source, and the propagation characteristics of high-frequency ultrasonic guided waves in the rail were obtained. The results show that the rail pad has a relatively little influence on the dispersion curves of ultrasonic guided waves in the high frequency band, and has a relatively large influence on the dispersion curves of ultrasonic guided waves in the low frequency band below 4 kHz. The rail elastic modulus has significant influence on the phase velocity in the high frequency band, while the group velocity is greatly affected by the rail elastic modulus in the low frequency band.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.20-24
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• 2009

There is extensive tubing pipe in the nuclear power plant under high temperature and pressure. Erosion and corrosion defects are expected on this tubing pipe due to environmental and mechanical factors. In this study, Guided Ultrasonic Wave technique was applied to detect defects. The technique explores the advantages of the Guided Ultrasonic Wave method that inspects along the wall of the pipe and can travel long distances, providing rapid collection of data. This paper presents a case study of the Guided Ultrasonic Wave testing of 3/8" tubing pipe. This study offers to understand detected signals through correlation between amplitude and depth of defects.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.42-50
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• 2008

To evaluate rock bolt integrity, destructive test such as pull-out test has been commonly carried out. This method is known as time consuming, expensive, and inaccurate procedure. To improve destructive method, non-destructive techniques using transmitted guided ultrasonic waves were suggested. Note for the transmission method, the source for the generation of ultrasonic waves should be installed during the rock bolt construction. The purpose of this study is to investigate the reflection method using reflected guided ultrasonic waves to evaluate the integrity of the rock bolt grouted, and to compare the results evaluated by the reflection and transmission methods. The guided waves are generated by PZT element and received by AE sensor. The measured signals are analyzed by the wavelet transform. The results show that the energy velocities of guided ultrasonic waves increase with the defect ratio in both transmission and reflection method. The reflection method produces the lower velocity in all defect ratio. This research demonstrates that the reflection method may be suitable and easer method for the field tests.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.435-440
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• 2014

Contact-guided-wave tests are impractical for investigating specimens with limited accessibility and rough surfaces or complex geometric features. A non-contact setup with a laser-ultrasonic transmitter and receiver is quite attractive for guided-wave inspection. In the present work, we developed a non-contact guided-wave tomography technique using the laser-ultrasonic technique in a plate. A method for Lamb-wave generation and detection in an aluminum plate with a pulsed laser-ultrasonic transmitter and Michelson-interferometer receiver was developed. The defect shape and area in the images obtained using laser scanning, showed good agreement with the actual defect. The proposed approach can be used as a non-contact online inspection and monitoring technique.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.43-48
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• 2005

Conventional non-destructive techniques for inspection of the weld in pipelines require significant test time and high cost. Ultrasonic guided waves have been widely studied and successfully applied to various non-destructive tests with advantage of the long-range inspection. In this paper, a study on the application of ultrasonic guided waves to the long-range inspection of the pipeline is presented using a long-range guided wave inspection system, Wavemaker SE16, GUL. The characteristics and setup of the long-range guided wave inspection system and experimental results in pipes of with various diameter are introduced. The experimental results in mock-up pipes with cluster type detects show that the minimum detectable wall thickness reduction with this guided wave system is $2\~3\%$ in the pipe cross section area. And the wall thickness reduction of $5\%$ in cross section area can be detected when actual detection level is used. Therefore, the applicability of the guided wave systeme to long-range inspection of wall thickness reduction in pipes is verified.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.36-40
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• 2010

The ultrasonic guided wave propagates along with the given structure's wall direction. Because of this specific character, the ultrasonic guided waves arc used in many other fields. Especially, it can be readily utilized for nondestructive inspection of various structures that are made up of gas pipes, heat exchanger tubes, and thin plates. Further, the guided wave technology can be readily utilized when inspecting pipes or thin plates which pose high risk of the accident but for which the nondestructive inspection itself is impossible because it is difficult to get to them since they are coated or buried underground. In the other hand, conventional ultrasonic testing such as thickness gauging uses bulk waves and only tests the region of structure immediately below the transducer. As a result of the application about inlet and outlet cooling water line using guided wave test, we conformed that the overall corrosions were in the lower side of the 304.8 mm inlet valve and these corrosions were engaged in not locally but through the lower side of the valve line. In the near future, we can expect that the detectable defect size is smaller than before along with the development of the sensing technology.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.227-233
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• 2011

The ultrasonic guided wave phased array using magnetostrictive patch transducers is proposed. The magnetostrictive transducer has received much attention because it is cost-effective and capable to generate ultrasonic waves with a simple configuration. However, it has not been used for ultrasonic guided wave phased array applications until now. In this paper, we propose a magnetostrictive transducer based phased array system consisting of a multi-channel function generator, power amplifiers and Lamb wave magnetostrictive transducers. To check the performance of the ultrasonic guided wave phased array, several Lamb wave focusing experiments were carried out in an aluminum plate. The results demonstrated the capability of the developed array to focus the Lamb waves at specific target points.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.117-123
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• 2009

This paper presents a numerical simulation of guided ultrasonic waves propagating in aluminum-epoxy-aluminum adhesive plates. In particular, this study investigated the effect of the epoxy thickness on the dispersive patterns, such as the phase velocity and group velocity of guided ultrasonic waves. In addition to investigating the dispersive curves, a numerical simulation using the pulse-echo method was carried out. This simulation showed that the degree of sensitivity of the epoxy thickness is dependent on the curvature of the phase and group dispersion curves, the maximum amplitude of the received time signals, and the peak frequency of the real components of the Fourier transform. Then, the linear relations between the epoxy thickness and the received and transformed signals were constructed to estimate the epoxy thickness.