• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.317-328
• /
• 2009

Current maintenance operations and integrity checks on a wide array of structures require personnel entry into normally-inaccessible or hazardous areas to perform necessary nondestructive inspections. To gain access for these inspections, structure must be disassembled and removed or personnel must be transported to remote locations. The use of in-situ sensors, coupled with remote interrogation, can be employed to overcome a myriad of inspection impediments stemming from accessibility limitations, complex geometries, the location and depth of hidden damage, and the isolated location of the structure. Furthermore, prevention of unexpected flaw growth and structural failure could be improved if on-board health monitoring systems were used to more regularly assess structural integrity. A research program has been completed to develop and validate Comparative Vacuum Monitoring (CVM) Sensors for surface crack detection. Statistical methods using one-sided tolerance intervals were employed to derive Probability of Detection (POD) levels for a wide array of application scenarios. Multi-year field tests were also conducted to study the deployment and long-term operation of CVM sensors on aircraft. This paper presents the quantitative crack detection capabilities of the CVM sensor, its performance in actual flight environments, and the prospects for structural health monitoring applications on aircraft and other civil structures.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2004.11a
• /
• pp.13-18
• /
• 2004

It is important to estimate the distribution of intensity of a magnetic field for application of magnetic method to industrial nondestructive evaluation. Magnetic camera provides the distribution of a quantitative magnetic field with homogeneous lift-off and same spatial resolution. Leakage magnetic flux near the crack on the specimen could be amplified by 3-dimensional magnetic fluid and zoom in and out of measurement area. This study introduces the experimental consideration of the effects of lens for concentrating of magnetic flux. The experimental results showed that the magnetic fluid has sufficient lens effect for magnetic camera and effect of improvement in probability of detection.

• International Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology Speciallssue:Selected Papers
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.31-37
• /
• 2001

In this paper, an integrated damage identification system (IDIS) is proposed to locate and size damage in real structures. The application of the IDIS to real structures includes the measurement of modal responses, the construction of damage-detection models, and the implementation of measurements and models into the damage-detection process. Firstly, the theory of the damage identification method is outlined. Secondly, the schematic and each component of the IDIS are described. Finally, the practicality of the IDIS is verified from experiments on two different bridge-models, a model plate-grider and a model truss.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
• /
• 1998.10b
• /
• pp.785-790
• /
• 1998

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a powerful tool with a wide range of applications in the nondestructive testing of concrete. It's useful for the detection of steel bars and delaminations embedded inside concrete, nondestructively. The purpose of this study is to detect a reinforced bar embedded inside concrete and to determine the range of application using GPR. A concrete specimen used for this study has a 25mm diameter steel bar and it's dimensions are 1,000 mm (L)× 1,000 mm(W)×280 mm(D). The advantages and limitations of GPR in these applications for concrete are also discussed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.473-481
• /
• 2017

This study suggests a simple, convenient and non-destructive method for investigation of the Young's modulus detection in stepped shafts which only utilizes the first-order resonant frequency in flexural mode and dimensions of structures. The method is based on the impulse excitation technique (IET) to pick up the fundamental resonant frequencies. The standard Young's modulus detection formulas for rectangular and circular cross-sections are well investigated in literatures. However, the Young's modulus of stepped shafts can not be directly detected using the formula for a beam with rectangular or circular cross-section. A response surface method (RSM) is introduced to design numerical simulation experiments to build up experimental formula to detect Young's modulus of stepped shafts. The numerical simulation performed by finite element method (FEM) to obtain enough simulation data for RSM analysis. After analysis and calculation, the relationship of flexural resonant frequencies, dimensions of stepped shafts and Young's modulus is obtained. Numerical simulations and experimental investigations show that the IET method can be used to investigate Young's modulus in stepped shafts, and the FEM simulation and RSM based IET formula proposed in this paper is applicable to calculate the Young's modulus in stepped shaft. The method can be further developed to detect mechanical parameters of more complicated structures using the combination of FEM simulation and RSM.

• Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.99-105
• /
• 2006

A digital ultrasonic image construction system was developed for the nondestructive detection of cracks in water distribution pipes. The system consists of PC based ultrasonic testing system and a scanning device. The PC based ultrasonic system has an ultrasonic pulse/receive board for the generation and reception of ultrasonic signals, an analogue to digital conversion board for the digitization of the received ultrasonic signals, and transducers for the ultrasonic sensors. Using this system, the digitized ultrasonic signals were properly constructed in accordance with the position information obtained by scanning device that moves an ultrasonic transducer along the outer surface of pipes. In the construction of the ultrasonic signals, signal processing concepts, such as spatial average and array concept, were considered to enhance the resolution of ultrasonic images of pipe wall. Using the developed system, crack detection experiments were performed in both laboratory and field, which shows promise for crack detection in the water distribution system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
• /
• v.19 no.9
• /
• pp.935-942
• /
• 2009

In this paper, the purpose is to investigate the natural frequency of a cracked Timoshenko cantilever beams by FEM(finite element method) and experiment. In addition, a method for detection of crack in a cantilever beams is presented based on natural frequency measurements. The governing differential equations of a Timoshenko beam are derived via Hamilton's principle. The two coupled governing differential equations are reduced to one fourth order ordinary differential equation in terms of the flexural displacement. The crack is assumed to be in the first mode of fracture and to be always opened during the vibrations. The detection method of a crack location in a beam based on the frequency measurements is extended here to Timoshenko beams, taking the effects of both the shear deformation and the rotational inertia into account. The differences between the actual and predicted crack positions and sizes are less than 6 % and 23 % respectively.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.185-215
• /
• 2005

Advanced signal processing techniques have been long introduced and widely used in structural health monitoring (SHM) and nondestructive evaluation (NDE). In our research, we applied several signal processing approaches for our embedded ultrasonic structural radar (EUSR) system to obtain improved damage detection results. The EUSR algorithm was developed to detect defects within a large area of a thin-plate specimen using a piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) array. In the EUSR, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) was first applied for signal de-noising. Secondly, after constructing the EUSR data, the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) were used for the time-frequency analysis. Then the results were compared thereafter. We eventually chose continuous wavelet transform to filter out from the original signal the component with the excitation signal's frequency. Third, cross correlation method and Hilbert transform were applied to A-scan signals to extract the time of flight (TOF) of the wave packets from the crack. Finally, the Hilbert transform was again applied to the EUSR data to extract the envelopes for final inspection result visualization. The EUSR system was implemented in LabVIEW. Several laboratory experiments have been conducted and have verified that, with the advanced signal processing approaches, the EUSR has enhanced damage detection ability.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2002

The high frequency ultrasonic transducers using polyvinyliden fluoride(PVDF) and polyvinylidene fluoride trifluorethyylene(P(VDF-TrFE)) were developed. The characteristics of fabricated high frequency ultrasonic transducer such as beam diameter, high frequency ultrasonic detection field and amplitude of the first pulse echo signal from the test target in the water were analyzed. The high frequency ultrasonic detection field was affected by the length of coaxial cable between high frequency transducer and ultrasonic pulser/receiver. As the size of the test target increased, the high frequency detection field decreased and the amplitude of a reflection signal increased. The peak amplitude of the first pulse echo signal of P(VDF-TrFE) transducer was higher than that of PVDF transducer. The high frequency ultrasonic detection field of PVDF transducer was wider than that of P(VDF-TrFE) transducer. With C-scan testing, the developed high frequency ultrasonic transducer could detect the 30 to $100{\mu}m$ of hydrogen induced crack of steel specimen by C-scan testing.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.299-304
• /
• 2007

There are to be some cracks on the material degradation part or the stress concentration parts of the main members, which carry on over-loads, of structures. Because these cracks can be used to evaluate the structural health status, it is important to monitor the crack growth for maintaining the structural safety. In this study, the fiber Bragg grating sensor with a drop ball was developed as a sensor for crack growth detection of an existing crack. The crack growth detection sensor was constructed with three parts: a probe part, a wavelength controling light source and receiver part, and an impact part. The probe part was just formed with a fiber Bragg grating optical fiber The wavelength controling light source part was composed of a current supplying circuit, a DFB laser diode, and a TEC controling circuit for wavelength control. Also, the impact part was just implemented by dropping a steel ball. The performance of this sensor was confirmed by the experiments of the crack detection with an aluminum plate having one existing crack. According to these experiments, the difference of the sensor signal outputs was correlated with the crack length. So, it was confirmed that this sensor could be applied to monitor the crack growth.