• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.578-595
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• 2020

Submarine pressure hulls must withstand high hydraulic pressure and be free of defects. To improve the precision of defect detection, we herein examined different probes for optimal defect assessment by applying the Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT) method. Two sets of probe design parameters were selected by considering pressure hull characteristics and analyzed through modeling. PAUT probes were applied, and defect assessment results were compared based on ultrasonic signals of various simulated defects in specimens designed to be the same as actual pressure hulls. The final selected design parameters for the submarine probe, which were designed to minimize the grating lobe of wave interference effect and improve the ultrasonic resolution of pressure hull welds, were identified through the experiment. The improvement in the probe's ability to detect defects in a pressure hull was verified. Furthermore, the accuracy of defect length measurement was improved, enhancing the applicability of the technique.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.153-169
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• 2018

A submarine has a pressure hull that can withstand high hydraulic pressure and therefore, requires the use of highly advanced shipbuilding technology. When producing a pressure hull, periodic inspection, repair, and maintenance are conducted to maintain its soundness. Of the maintenance methods, Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) is the most effective, because it does not damage the target but sustains its original form and function while inspecting internal and external defects. The NDT process to detect defects in the welded parts of the submarine is applied through Magnetic particle Testing (MT) to detect surface defects and Ultrasonic Testing (UT) and Radiography Testing (RT) to detect internal defects. In comparison with RT, UT encounters difficulties in distinguishing the types of defects, can yield different results depending on the skills of the inspector, and stores no inspection record. At the same time, the use of RT gives rise to issues related to worker safety due to radiation exposure. RT is also difficult to apply from the perspectives of the manufacturing of the submarine and economic feasibility. Therefore, in this study, the Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT) method was applied to propose an inspection method that can address the above disadvantages by designing a probe to enhance the precision of detection of hull defects and the reliability of calculations of defect size.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.299-306
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• 2015

A conventional phased array system can control an ultrasonic beam electronically by adjusting the excitation time delay of individual elements in a multi-element probe and produce an ultrasonic image. In Contrast, full matrix capture (FMC) is a data acquisition process that allows receiving ultrasonic signals from one single shot of the phased array transducer element through all the other elements and captures the complete dataset from every possible transmit-receive combination. This FMC data can be used to create the ultrasonic image in post processing. It is possible to produce not only images equivalent to conventional phased array image but also total focusing method (TFM) images with improved resolution and sharpness, which is virtually focused at any point in a region of interest. In this paper, the system that can perform FMC by using a conventional phased array instrument is developed, and a study was conducted on the imaging algorithms to reconstruct sector B-scan and TFM images from FMC dataset.