• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.79-85
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• 2003

One of unique characteristics of guided waves is a dispersive behavior that guided wave velocity changes with an excitation frequency and mode. In practical applications of guided wave techniques, it is very important to identify propagating modes in a time-domain waveform for determination of defect location and size. Mode identification can be done by measurement of group velocity in a time-domain waveform. Thus, it is preferred to generate a single or less dispersive mode But in many cases, it is difficult to distinguish a mode clearly in a time-domain waveform because of superposition of multi modes and mode conversion phenomena. Time-frequency analysis is used as efficient methods to identify modes by presenting wave energy distribution in a time-frequency. In this study, experimental guided wave mode identification is carried out in a steel plate using time-frequency analysis methods such as wavelet transform. The results are compared with theoretically calculated group velocity dispersion curves. The results are in good agreement with analytical predictions and show the effectiveness of using the wavelet transform method to identify and measure the amplitudes of individual guided wave modes.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.301-309
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• 2022

Protective coatings are most widely used anticorrosive structures for steel structures. The corrosion under the coating damages the host material, but this damage is completely hidden. Therefore, a field-applicable under-coating-corrosion visualization method has been desired for a long time. Laser ultrasonic technology has been studied in various fields as an in situ nondestructive inspection method. In this study, a comparative analysis was carried out between a guided-wave ultrasonic propagation imager (UPI) and pulse-echo UPI, which have the potential to be used in the field of under-coating-corrosion management. Both guided-wave UPI and pulse-echo UPI were able to successfully visualize the corrosion. Regarding the field application, the guided-wave UPI performing Q-switch laser scanning and piezoelectric sensing by magnetic attachment exhibited advantages owing to the larger distance and incident angle in the laser measurement than those of the pulse-echo UPI. Regarding the corrosion visualization methods, the combination of adjacent wave subtraction and variable time window amplitude mapping (VTWAM) provided acceptable results for the guided-wave UPI, while VTWAM was sufficient for the pule-echo UPI. In addition, the capability of multiple sensing in a single channel of the guided-wave UPI could improve the field applicability as well as the relatively smaller size of the system. Thus, we propose a guided-wave UPI as a tool for under-coating-corrosion management.

• 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.28 no.6
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• pp.496-503
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• 2008

We propose rectangular type spiral coils with folded comers for the applications to low frequency guided wave magnetostrictive transducers and describe a method for making the proposed coils from insulated electrical wire such as enameled copper wire. Expressions for the electrical properties of the coils are also presented and compared with experimental measurements. An overlapped-2-channel folded-comer spiral-coil array is fabricated and applied to a magnetostrictive strip transducer generating and detecting fundamental torsional mode guided waves. From the results we conclude that the design and fabrication method make it possible to use the magnetostrictive transducers optimized for various guided wave applications and also will greatly help engineers gain easy access to the optimized transducers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.550-554
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• 2014

Regarding thin films in MEMS/NEMS structures, the exact evaluation of mechanical properties is very essential to enhance the reliability of their design and manufacturing. However, such methods as a tensile test and a resonance test, general methods to measure elastic moduli, cannot be applied to thin films since its thickness is so small. This work concerns guided wave based elastic modulus measurement method. To this end, guided wave excitation and detection system using a pulsed laser and a laser interferometry has been established. Also an elastic modulus extraction algorithm from the measured guided wave signal was developed. Finally, it was applied to actual thin film structures such as Ni-Si and Al-Si multilayers. From experimental results, we confirm that the proposed method has considerable feasibility to measure elastic properties of thin films.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.761-776
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• 2018

Guided wave testing is a reliable and safe method for pipeline inspection. In general, guided wave testing employs a circumferential array of piezoelectric transducers to clamp on the pipe circumference. The sensitivity of the operation depends on many factors, including transducer distribution across the circumferential array. This paper presents the sensitivity analysis of transducer array for the circumferential characteristics of guided waves in a pipe using finite element modelling and experimental studies. Various cases are investigated for the outputs of guided waves in the numerical simulations, including the number of transducers per array, transducer excitation variability and variations in transducer spacing. The effect of the dimensions of simulated notches in the pipe is also investigated for different arrangements of the transducer array. The results from the finite element numerical simulations are then compared with the related experimental results. Results show that the numerical outputs agree well with the experimental data, and the guided wave mode T(0,1) presents high sensitivity to the notch size in the circumferential direction, but low sensitivity to the notch size in the axial direction.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.206-212
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• 2000

The guided wave mode conversion phenomena were investigated for the NDE of a plate-like structure with thickness variation. The ratios of reflection and transmission (R/T) were measured via the self-calibrating procedure which allows us to obtain experimental guided wave data in a more reliable way regardless of the coupling uncertainty between transducer & specimen. The results on R/T could be used to determine the thickness reduction of the structure. It was shown that not only the incident modes but also the converted ones need to be considered in the self-calibrating guided wave inspection to extract a reasonable correlation between experimental data & the thickness variation. Through this study, the potential of guided wave inspection as a quantitative NDE technique was explored based on the combined concept of self-calibration & multi-mode conversion in guided wave scattering problems.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.213-236
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• 2015

The paper presents an investigation into the mode conversion and scattering characteristics of guided waves at delaminations in laminated composite beams. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model, which is experimentally verified using data measured by 3D scanning laser vibrometer, is used in the investigation. The study consists of two parts. The first part investigates the excitability of the fundamental anti-symmetric mode ($A_0$) of guided wave in laminated composite beams. It is found that there are some unique phenomena, which do not exist for guided waves in plate structures, make the analysis become more complicated. The phenomena are observed in numerical study using 3D FE simulations. In the second part, several delaminated composite beams are studied numerically to investigate the mode conversion and scattering characteristics of the $A_0$ guided wave at delaminations. Different sizes, locations and through-thickness locations of the delaminations are investigated in detail. The mode conversion and scattering phenomena of guided waves at the delaminations are studied by calculating reflection and transmission coefficients. The results show that the sizes, locations and through-thickness locations of the delaminations have significant effects on the scattering characteristics of guided waves at the delaminations. The results of this research would provide better understanding of guided waves propagation and scattering at the delaminations in the laminated composite beams, and improve the performance of guided wave damage detection methods.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.411-416
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• 2006

The critical subject of transverse crack detection in a rail head is treated in this paper. Conventional bulk wave ultrasonic techniques oftenfail because of shelling and other surface imperfections that shield the defects that lie below the shelling. A guided wave inspection technique is introduced here that can send ultrasonic energy along the rail under the shelling with a capability of finding the deleterious transverse crack defects. Dispersion curves are generated via a semi analytical finite element technique along with a hybrid guided wave finite element technique to explore the most suitable modes and frequencies for finding these defects. Sensor design and experimental feasibility experiments are also reported.