• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.307-321
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• 2015

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of an innovative surface-mount sensor, made of a piezoelectric disc (PZT sensor), as a consistent source for surface wave velocity and transmission measurements in concrete structures. To this end, one concrete slab with lateral dimensions of 1500 by 1500 mm and a thickness of 200 mm was prepared in the laboratory. The concrete slab had a notch-type, surface-breaking crack at its center, with depths increasing from 0 to 100 mm at stepwise intervals of 10 mm. A PZT sensor was attached to the concrete surface and used to generate incident surface waves for surface wave measurements. Two accelerometers were used to measure the surface waves. Signals generated by the PZT sensors show a broad bandwidth with a center frequency around 40 kHz, and very good signal consistency in the frequency range from 0 to 100 kHz. Furthermore, repeatability of the surface wave velocity and transmission measurements is significantly improved compared to that obtained using manual impact sources. In addition, the PZT sensors are demonstrated to be effective for monitoring an actual surface-breaking crack in a concrete beam specimen subjected to various external loadings (compressive and flexural loading with stepwise increases). The findings in this study demonstrate that the surface mount sensor has great potential as a consistent source for surface wave velocity and transmission measurements for automated health monitoring of concrete structures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.434-478
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• 2006

Stress waves have been used for geophysical and geotechnical applications for more than 50 years. The early-stage applications were simply based on travel-time measurements of stress waves and limited to site characterization. Currently stress-wave techniques are expanded to monitoring processes for grouting of damaged geotechnical structures, compaction of embankment, and deformational analyses for static geotechnical problems. Seismic techniques used to be good enough for rough estimators of engineering properties. Nowadays, the sophisticated modeling theory of stress-wave propagation substantially improved reliability and accuracy of the seismic techniques. In this paper, difficulties involved in currently available seismic techniques are discussed and analyzed. Herein some recently-developed non-intrusive seismic techniques, which make optimal use of stress waves for further improvement of reliability and accuracy, are also presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.497-519
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• 2003

Science and technology is an essential ingredient of the progress in modern society. Measurements enable action and actions enable results. Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) - the science and technology of measurements without affecting the Properties and performance of the test object is an interdisciplinary domain area of high significance far ensuring quality, productivity and safety thus enabling better qualify of lift to the inhabitants on this planet. The test object can be material, component, plant, earth, environment etc. Total qualify management, total productivity management, concurrent engineering and many other essential ingredients of success in plant engineering and manufacturing industry are dependent on NDE far success and good returns on investments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Near Infrared Spectroscopy Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.1628-1628
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• 2001

Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is a powerful technique for non-destructive analysis that can be obtained in a wide range of environments. Recently, NIR measurements have been utilized as probe for quantitative analysis in agricultural, industrial, and medical sciences. In addition, it is also possible to make practical application on NIR for molecular structural analysis. In this work, Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) measurements were carried out to utilize extensively in the relative amounts of different secondary structures were employed, such as Iysozyme, concanavalin A, silk fibroin and so on. Several broad NIR bands due to the protein absorption were observed between 4000 and $5000\;^{-1}$. In order to obtain more structural information from these featureless bands, second derivative and Fourier-self-deconvolution procedures were performed. Significant band separation was observed near the feature at $4610\;^{-1}$ ,. Particularly the peak intensity at $4525\;^{-1}$ shows a characteristic change with thermal denaturation of fibroin. The structural information can be also obtained by mid-IR and CD spectral. Correlation of NIR spectra with protein structure is discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.582-589
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• 2006

Shear wane velocity is important property for grasping the dynamic characteristics of material. It is has been used in various fields such as non-destructive testings of structures, seismic analysis of geotechnical structures and maintenance of concrete structure, and etc. Usually, shear wave velocities of rock cores and concrete cylinders are determined by free-free resonance tests, Shear wave measurement in free-free resonance tests is not straightforward, as compared with rod wave and flexural wane measurements. In This study, a new technique using resonance features of flexural and shear waves were proposed in which the nodal points for the fundamental mode of flexural waves were employed to generate and measure the shear waves with the flexural waves minimized. The real measurements for aluminum cylinders proved validity and reliability of the proposed algorithm. In addition to the proposed algorithm, the effects of material properties on elastic-wave velocities in resonance measurements were also studied. In summary, a new framework of the resonance measurements for shear-wave velocity determination was established, based on the results of this thesis.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2016

Ultrasonic tomography is a powerful tool for identifying defects within an object or structure. But practical application of ultrasonic tomography to solids is often limited by time consuming transducer coupling. Air-coupled ultrasonic measurements may eliminate the coupling problem and allow for more rapid data collection and tomographic image construction. This research aims to integrate recent developments in air-coupled ultrasonic measurements with current tomography reconstruction routines to improve testing capability. The goal is to identify low velocity inclusions (air-filled voids and notches) within solids using constructed velocity images. Finite element analysis is used to simulate the experiment in order to determine efficient data collection schemes. Comparable air-coupled ultrasonic signals are then collected through homogeneous and isotropic solid (PVC polymer) samples. Volumetric (void) and planar (notch) inclusions within the samples are identified in the constructed velocity tomograms for a variety of transducer configurations. Although there is some distortion of the inclusions, the experimentally obtained tomograms accurately indicate their size and location. Reconstruction error values, defined as misidentification of the inclusion size and position, were in the range of 1.5-1.7%. Part 2 of this paper set will describe the application of this imaging technique to concrete that contains inclusions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 2000.11c
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• pp.593-599
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• 2000

Accurate quantification of plant physiological properties is often necessary for optimal control of an automated greenhouse production system. Conventional crop growth monitoring systems are usually burdensome, inaccurate, and harmful to crops. A thermal image analysis system was used to accomplish rapid and accurate measurements of physiological-property changes of water-stressed crops. Thermal images were obtained from several species of plants that were placed in a growth chamber. Analyzing the images provided the pattern of temperature changes in a leaf and the amount of differences in the temperature of stressed plants and non-stressed plants.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.439-444
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• 1999

Automated greenhouse production systems often require crop growth monitoring involving accurate quantification of plant physiological properties. Conventional methods are usually burdensome, inaccurate, and harmful to crops. A thermal image analysis system can accomplish rapid and accurate measurements of physiological-property changes of stressed crops. In this research a thermal imaging system was used to measure the leaf-temperature changes of several crops according to water deficit. Thermal images were obtained from lettuce, cucumber, pepper, and chinese cabbage plants. Results showed that there were significant differences in the temperature of stressed plants and non-stressed plants. The temperature differences between these two group of plants were 0.7 to 3$^{\circ}C$ according to species.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.285-290
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• 1998

Growth information of crops is essential for efficient control of greenhouse environment. However, a few non-invasive and continuous monitoring methods of crop growth has been developed. A computer vision system with a CCD camera and a frame grabber was developed to conduct non-destructive and intact plant growth analyses. The developed system was evaluated by conducting the growth analysis of lettuce. A linear model that explains the relationship between the relative crop coverage by the crop canopy and dry weight of a lettuce was presented. It was shown that this measurement method could estimate the dry weight from the relative crop coverage by the crop canopy. The result also showed that there was a high correlation between the projected top leaf area and the dry weight of the lettuce.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.31-43
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• 2016

Applications of ultrasonic tomography to concrete structures have been reported for many years. However, practical and effective application of this tool for nondestructive assessment of internal concrete condition is hampered by time consuming transducer coupling that limits the amount of ultrasonic data that can be collected. This research aims to deploy recent developments in air-coupled ultrasonic measurements of solids, described in Part 1 of this paper set, to concrete in order to image internal inclusions. Ultrasonic signals are collected from concrete samples using a fully air-coupled (contactless) test configuration. These air coupled data are compared to those collected using partial semi-contact and full-contact test configurations. Two samples are considered: a 150 mm diameter cylinder with an internal circular void and a prism with $300mm{\times}300mm$ square cross-section that contains internal damaged regions and embedded reinforcement. The heterogeneous nature of concrete material structure complicates the application and interpretation of ultrasonic measurements and imaging. Volumetric inclusions within the concrete specimens are identified in the constructed velocity tomograms, but wave scattering at internal interfaces of the concrete disrupts the images. This disruption reduces defect detection accuracy as compared with tomograms built up of data collected from homogeneous solid samples (PVC) that are described in Part 1 of this paper set. Semi-contact measurements provide some improvement in accuracy through higher signal-to-noise ratio while still allowing for reasonably rapid data collection.