• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.20 no.6 s.73
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• pp.1-6
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• 2006

Corrosion of reinforcing steel bars is a major concern for ocean engineers when reinforced concrete structures are exposed to marine environments. Evaluating the degree of corrosion and corrosion-induced defects is extremely necessary to pursue a proper retrofit or rehabilitation plan for reinforced concrete structures. A promising inspection should be carried out for the evaluation, otherwise the retrofit or rehabilitation process would be useless. Nowadays, ultrasonic guided wave-based inspection techniques become quite promising for the inspection, mainly because of their long-range propagation capability and their sensitivity to different types of defects or conditions. Evaluating haw the guided waves response to the different types of defects or conditions is quite challenging and important. This study shows how surface conditions of reinforcing bars and a corrosion-induced defect, separation, affect guided wave propagation in reinforced concrete. Experiments and associated signal analysis show the sensitivity of guided waves to the surface conditions, as well as the amounts of separation at the interface between. concrete and steel bar.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.367-373
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• 2011

Guided waves inspection techniques that are different with inspection technique by bulk waves are widely used in pipe line evaluation due to advantages of long distance inspection. However, most of pipe lines at industrial fields are buried and/or coated. In this case, due to the attenuation effect from soil and/or coating material, there are a lot of difficulty on inspection by conventional ultrasonic technique. In this paper, guided waves propagating patterns are calculated with respect to excitation mode by Normal Mode Expansion(NME). Guided waves patterns based on excited by single transducer and guided wave focusing technique have employed to analyze focusing pattern on a pipe. A longitudinal mode and high order flexural modes are used with various number of transducers to determine sensitivity. Guided waves energy excited by multi transducer with focusing algorithm was successfully focused at a desired point.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.329-344
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• 2009

Ultrasonic chaotic excitations combined with sensor prediction algorithms have shown the ability to identify incipient damage (loss of preload) in a bolted joint. In this study we examine a physical experiment on a single-bolt aluminum lap joint as well as a three-dimensional physics-based simulation designed to model the behavior of guided ultrasonic waves through a similarly configured joint. A multiple bolt frame structure is also experimentally examined. In the physical experiment each signal is imparted to the structure through a macro-fiber composite (MFC) patch on one side of the lap joint and sensed using an equivalent MFC patch on the opposite side of the joint. The model applies the waveform via direct nodal displacement and 'senses' the resulting displacement using an average of the nodal strain over an area equivalent to the MFC patch. A novel statistical classification feature is developed from information theory concepts of cross-prediction and interdependence. This damage detection algorithm is used to evaluate multiple damage levels and locations.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.271-277
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• 2011

This study presents a nondestructive test for underwater PVC pipes. To use guided ultrasonic waves, specially denoted by cylindrical Lamb waves, a test setup was made in a water tank using the pitch and catch mode and specimens were made to give artificial cutouts located in the circumferential direction of the pipes. Total three states of damaged levels were considered to see how the guided waves interact with the defects. For the experimental adjustments, three different pipe diameters (60, 90, 114 mm) were tested, and two factors - incident angle (10 and $40^{\circ}$) and distance (50 and 200 mm) - were tried. From the results, regardless of the diameters and two experimental factors, it is shown that the degrees of defects were recognized through amplitude and arrived time of the very first part of the received cylindrical Lamb waves. Between amplitude and arrived time, it is found that the amplitude gives more sensitive results.

• 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.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.3E
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• pp.140-145
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• 2010

In the present study, tubular polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cortical bone mimics that simulate the cortical shell of long bones were used to validate the axial transmission technique for assessing the cortical thickness by measuring the ultrasonic velocities along the cortical shell of long bones. The ultrasonic velocities in the 9 PVC cortical bone mimics with wall thicknesses from 4.0 to 16.1 mm and inner diameters from 40 to 300 mm were measured as a function of the thickness by using a pair of custom-made transducers with a diameter of 12.7 mm and a center frequency of 200 kHz. In order to clarify the measured behavior, they were also compared with the predictions from a theory of guided waves in thin plates. This phantom study using the PVC cortical bone mimics provides useful insight into the dependencies of ultrasonic velocities on the cortical thickness in human long bones.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.353-361
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• 2004

Propagation of the guided waves in a steam generator (SG) tube was investigated. Dispersion curves and the incident angles corresponding to the specific modes were calculated for the SG tube. The modes of guided wave were identified by time-frequency diagrams obtained by short time Fourier transform. Group velocities were also determined from the time-frequency diagrams obtained at the different separations of transducers. In experiment. distinct mode conversion was not observed when the guided ultrasound passed curved region of the S/G tube. The optimum mode of guided wave for the inspection of SG tube was suggested and verified by experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.233-240
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• 2014

In this study, we investigated the dispersion characteristics of guided waves in thin films. Dispersion curves are essential for understanding not only the behavior of ultrasonic waves, but also the mechanical properties of thin films. Matrix techniques are presented for modeling ultrasonic waves in multilayered structures before being used to calculate the dispersion curves for Al-steel and Al-composite specimens. When compared with the dispersion curves obtained using the commercial program (Disperse), the dispersion curves generated from the transfer matrix method show its validity. These developed methods are used to obtain dispersion curves for Al thin films deposited on a Si substrate. The resulting dispersion curves enable observation of both dispersive and non-dispersive behavior for the guided waves, depending on the thickness of the thin films.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.695-700
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• 2010

Material properties of the lock plate, which covers the gas-turbine blade, are studied using ultrasonic guided waves. The lock plate is a crucial part of a gas-turbine power plant. The wave velocity and attenuation coefficient are measured to investigate the changes in the material properties under three heat-treatment conditions. Compared to the destructive mechanical tests, the material characterization of Inconel X-750 can be performed more efficiently and nondestructively by using ultrasonic guided waves; this characterization helps identify the changes occurring in its elastic moduli and Poisson's ratio under different heat-treatment conditions. The wave velocity and hardness of Inconel X-750 are proportional to each other. This nondestructive technique for the measurement of material properties can be widely used in various industries to avoid catastrophic failure. It is also expected that the guided-wave technique can be applied as a new cost- and time-saving inspection tool for longer and wider inspection ranges.