• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.287-293
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• 2005

Ultrasonic guided waves are gaining increasing attention for the inspection of platelike and rodlike structures. At the same time, inspection methods that do not require contact with the test piece are being developed for advanced applications. This paper capitalizes on recent advances in the areas of guided wave ultrasonics and noncontact ultrasonics to demonstrate a superior method for the nondestructive detection of defects thinning simulating hidden corrosion in thin aluminum plates. The proposed approach uses EMAT(electro-magnetic acoustic transducer) for the noncontact generation and detection of guided waves. Interesting features in the dispersive behavior of selected guided modes are used for the detection of plate thinning. It is shown that mode cutoff measurements provide a qualitative detection of defects thinning. Measurement of the mode group velocity can be also used to quantify depth thinning.

• 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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.41-53
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• 2024

Grouting sleeves are an essential connecting component of prefabricated components, and the quality of grouting has a significant influence on structural integrity and seismic performance. The embedded grouting sleeve (EGS)'s grouting defects are highly undetectable and random, and no effective monitoring method exists. This paper proposes an ultrasonic guided wave method and provides a set of guidelines for selecting the optimal frequency and suitable period for the EGS. The optimal frequency was determined by considering the group velocity, wave structure, and wave attenuation of the selected mode. Guided waves are prone to multi-modality, modal conversion, energy leakage, and dispersion in the EGS, which is a multi-layer structure. Therefore, a time-reversal (TR)-based multi-mode focusing and dispersion automatic compensation technology is introduced to eliminate the multi-mode phase difference in the EGS. First, the influence of defects on guided waves is analyzed according to the TR coefficient. Second, two major types of damage indicators, namely, the time domain and the wavelet packet energy, are constructed according to the influence method. The constructed wavelet packet energy indicator is more sensitive to the changes of defecting than the conventional time-domain similarity indicator. Both numerical and experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible and beneficial for the detection and quantitative estimation of the grouting defects of the EGS.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.823-824
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.717-718
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• 2005

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.587-592
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• 2021

Change in the cortical thickness of long bones occurring with aging and osteoporosis is known to be a risk factor for fracture. The present study aims to investigate the dependencies of phase velocities of ultrasonic guided waves on the cortical thickness in 7 soft tissue-bone mimicking phantoms consisting of acrylic plates covered by a 2 mm-thick silicone rubber layer by using the axial transmission technique with a pair of transducers with a center frequency of 200 kHz and a diameter of 12.7 mm. Two distinct propagating waves with different velocities, the First Arriving Signal (FAS) and the Slow Guided Waved (SGW), were consistently observed for all the soft tissue-bone mimicking phantoms. The FAS velocity decreased slightly with increasing thickness, whereas the SGW velocity increased strongly with increasing thickness. The FAS and the SGW velocities were found to be closely consistent with the S0 and the A0 Lamb mode velocities for a free acrylic plate, respectively, suggesting that the presence of the soft tissue mimicking material (2 mm-thick silicone rubber layer) covering the acrylic plates does not influence significantly the velocity measurements.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2013

Ultrasonic guided wave techniques have been widely used for long range nondestructive detection in tube-like structures. The present paper investigates the ultrasonic linear and nonlinear parameters for evaluating the thermal damage in aluminum pipe. Specimens were subjected to thermal loading. Flexible polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) comb transducers were used to generate and receive the ultrasonic waves. The second harmonic wave generation technique was used to check the material nonlinearity change after different heat loadings. The conventional linear ultrasonic approach based on attenuation was also used to evaluate the thermal damages in specimens. The results show that the proposed experimental setup is viable to assess the thermal damage in an aluminum pipe. The ultrasonic nonlinear parameter is a promising candidate for the prediction of micro-damages in a tube-like structure.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.371-382
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• 2001

The recognition of such natural wave guides as plates, rods, hollow cylinders, multi-layer structures or simply an interface between two materials combined with an increased understanding of the physics and wave mechanics of guided wave propagation has led to a significant increase in the number of guided wave inspection applications being developed each year. Of primary attention Is the ability to inspect partially hidden structures, hard to access areas, and teated or insulated structures. An introduction to some physical consideration of guided waves followed by some sample problem descriptions in pipe, ice detection, fouling detection in the foods industry, aircraft, tar coated structures and acoustic microscopy is presented in this paper. A sample problem in Boundary Element Modeling is also presented to illustrate the move in guided wave analysis beyond detection and location analysis to quantification.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.229-251
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• 2012

Guided waves have shown a great potential for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. In contrast to traditional non-destructive testing (NDT) methodologies, a key element of SHM approaches is the high process of automation. The monitoring system should decide autonomously whether the host structure is intact or not. A basic requirement for the realization of such a system is that the sensors are permanently installed on the host structure. Thus, baseline measurements become available that can be used for diagnostic purposes, i.e., damage detection, localization, etc. This paper contributes to guided wave-based inspection in anisotropic materials for SHM purposes. Therefore, computational strategies are described for both, the solution of the complex equations for wave propagation analysis in composite materials based on exact elasticity theory and the popular global matrix method, as well as the underlying equations of two active damage localization algorithms for anisotropic structures. The result of the global matrix method is an angular and frequency dependent wave velocity characteristic that is used subsequently in the localization procedures. Numerical simulations and experimental investigations through time-delay measurements are carried out in order to validate the proposed theoretical model. An exemplary case study including the calculation of dispersion curves and damage localization is conducted on an exemplary unidirectional composite structure where the ultrasonic signals processed in the localization step are simulated with the spectral element method. The proposed study demonstrates the capabilities of the proposed algorithms for accurate damage localization in anisotropic structures.