• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.391-397
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• 2001

The guided wave propagation in inhomogeneous multi-layered structures is experimentally explored based on theoretical dispersion curves. It turns out that proper selection of incident angel and frequency is critical for guided wave generation in multi-layered structures. Theoretical dispersion curves greatly depend on adhesive zone thickness, layer thickness and material properties. It was possible to determine the adhesive zone thickness of an inhomogeneous multi-layered structure by monitoring experimentally the change of dispersion curves.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.594-604
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• 2003

A State-of-art methodologies on implementing conventional piezoelectric and flexible PVDF elements for generating ultrasonic guided waves in a tubing are presented. Comb transducers with PVDF can be efficiently applied to selectively excite a guided wave mode by wrapping around any size pipe while a conventional immersion type piezo-elements can be also possibly used with a modification of transducer fabrication. Technical comparisons between the use of angle beam probe and comb one will be also discussed in detail. The presented technique can be easily applied to NDE for a long range inspection of tubular structures.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.29-35
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• 2015

Pipes, commonly used in energy and petrochemical facilities, have various types of defects induced by diverse factors and this is often issued in NDE society. Ultrasonic guided wave inspection method are normally adopted to insure the healthiness of industry pipes. Recently, ultrasonic guided wave inspection is shifted to adopt arrayed probes and system. And here we developed an array guided wave ultrasonic testing system can adapt arrayed probes and focusing methods. In this paper, an array guided wave ultrasonic testing system is presented including a transmitting focusing technique and flaw signal level enhancement.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.122-129
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• 2009

Recently much attention has been paid to a guided wave due to its effective applicability to long range and fast inspection of structures. In guided wave based NDE, the appropriate selection of wave modes is one of important factors since the test performance is highly dependent on which mode of guided waves is employed. As far as plate-like structures are concerned, so far, SH guided wave has not been frequently applied compared to Lamb waves, which is mostly caused by the lack of proper and convenient transducers to generate and measure the SH waves. In this investigation, a new small-sized SH guided wave transducer based on magnetostriction is proposed. The present transducer was designed to be modular and be used with shear couplant to avoid the inconvenience of the existing magnetostrictive patch transducers, which comprises the ferromagnetic patch tightly bonded to a structure. The wave transduction mechanism and the detailed configuration of the present transducer are presented. Experimental verification is also conducted on test specimens and the results confirm the good performance of the present transducer module.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.264-269
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• 2013

Since MFC(macro-fiber composite) transducer has been developed, many researchers have tried to apply this transducer on SHM(structural health monitoring), because it is so flexible and durable that it can be easily embedded to various kinds of structures. The objective of this paper is to figure out the benefits and feasibility of applying MFC transducers to guided wave technique. For this, we have experimentally tested the performance of MFC patches as transmitter and sensors for excitation and reception of guided waves on the thin aluminum alloy plate. In order to enhance the signal accuracy, we applied the FIR filter for noise reduction as well as used STFT(short-time Fourier transform) algorithm to image the guided wave characteristics clearly. From the results, the guided wave generated based on MFC showed good agreement with its theoretical dispersion curves. Moreover, the ultrasonic Lamb wave techniques based on MFC patches in pitch-catch manner was tested for detection of surface notch defects of which depths are 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% of the aluminum plate thickness. Results showed that the notch was detectable well when the notch depth was 10% of the thickness or greater.

• 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.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.211-216
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• 2008

In this study, we have developed a program which can calculate phase and group velocities, attenuation and wave structures of each mode in multi-layered plates. The wave structures of each mode are obtained, varying material properties and number of layers. The key in the success of guided wave NDE is how to optimize the mode selection scheme by minimizing energy loss when a structure is in contact with liquid. In this study, the normalized out-of-plane displacements at the surface of a free plate are used to predict the variation of modal attenuation and verily the correlation between attenuation and wave structure. It turns out that the guided wave attenuation can be efficiently obtain from the out-of-plane displacement variation of a free wave guide alleviating such mathematical difficulties in extracting complex roots for the eigenvalue problem of a liquid loaded wave guide. Through this study, the concert to optimize guided wave mode selection is accomplished to enhance sensitivity and efficiency in nondestructive evaluation for multi-layered structures.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.196-203
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• 2015

The aim of this work is to demonstrate a method for exciting and receiving torsional and longitudinal mode guided waves with an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) ring array. First of all, a three-dimensional guided wave simulator is developed in order to numerically analyze the propagation of the guided wave. The finite difference time domain method is used for the simulator. Second, two guided wave testing systems using an EMAT ring array are provided: one is for torsional mode (T-mode) guided wave and the other is for longitudinal mode (L-mode). The EMATs used in the both systems are the same in design. A method to generate and receive the T- and L-mode guided waves with the same EMAT is proposed. Finally, experimental and numerical results are compared and discussed. The results of experiments and simulation agree well, showing the potential of the EMAT ring array as a mode controllable guided wave transmitter and receiver.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.239-245
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• 2007

A torsional guided wave mode in a tubular structure has many advantages in obtaining a higher sensitivity and lower attenuation for a defect, because it shows no dispersion characteristics and no radial displacement for a tubular structure. Many attempts have been made to excite and receive torsional guided waves by conventional piezoelectric transducers, but only a few examples are used during a practical field inspection. In this study, an array of electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) were for an excitation and reception of the torsional guided waves in a pipe was designed and fabricated. The signal patterns were analyzed based on various beam path length. The feasibility of detecting the defects was investigated through a series of experiments with artificial notches on a pipe.