• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.412-421
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• 2023

Ultrasound brain stimulation is spot-lighted by its capability of inducing brain cell activation in a localized deep brain region and ultimately treating impaired brain function while the efficiency and directivity of neural modulation are highly dependent on types of stimulus waveforms. Therefore, to optimize the types of stimulation parameters, we propose a cell-cultivable ultrasonic transducer having a series stack of a spin-coated polymer piezoelectric element (Poly-vinylidene fluoride-trifluorethylene, PVDF-TrFE) and a parylene insulating layer enhancing output acoustic pressure on a glass-coverslip which is commonly used in culturing cells. Due to the uniformity and high accuracy of stimulus waveform, tens of neuronal cell responses located on the transducer surface can be recorded simultaneously with fluorescence microscopy. By averaging the cell response traces from tens of cells, small changes to the low intensity ultrasound stimulations can be identified. In addition, the reduction of stimulus distortions made by standing wave generated from reflections between the transducers and other strong reflectors can be achieved by placing acoustic absorbers. Through the proposed ultrasound transducer, we could successfully observe the calcium responses induced by low-intensity ultrasound stimulation of 6 MHz, 0.2 MPa in astrocytes cultured on the transducer surface.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.323-332
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• 2005

A cylindrical constant volume combustion chamber was used to investigate the flow characteristics at the spark electrode gap and the combustion characteristics of a homogeneous charged methane-air mixture under various overall charge pressures, excess air ratios and ignition times. The flow characteristics, including the mean velocity and turbulence intensity, were analyzed with a hot wire anemometer. Combustion pressure development measured by piezoelectric pressure transducer, a flame propagation image acquired by ICCD camera and exhaust emissions measured by 2-valve gas chromatography were used to investigate effects of initial pressures, excess air ratios and ignition times on the combustion characteristics. It was found that the mean velocity and turbulence intensity had the maximum value around 200-300 ms and then decreased gradually to a near-zero value after 3000 ms and that the combustion duration was shorten and the flame speed and laminar burning velocity had the highest value under the condition of an excess air ratio of 1.1, an overall charge pressure of 0.15 MPa and an ignition time of 300 ms in the present study. The $CO_2$ concentration was proportional to the ignition time and overall charge pressure, the $CO_2$ concentration was proportional to the excess air ratio, and the UHC concentration was inversely proportional to the ignition time and overall charge pressure.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.367-379
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• 2019

Multiple Inputs and Multiple Outputs (MIMO) Fuzzy logic model is developed to predict the engine performance and emission characteristics of pongamia pinnata biodiesel with hydrogen injection. Engine performance and emission characteristics such as brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific energy consumption (BSEC), hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) and nitrous oxides ($NO_X$) were considered. Experimental investigations were carried out by using four stroke single cylinder constant speed compression ignition engine with the rated power of 5.2 kW at variable load conditions. The performance and emission characteristics are measured using an Exhaust gas analyzer, smoke meter, piezoelectric pressure transducer and crank angle encoder for different fuel blends (Diesel, B10, B20 and B30) and engine load conditions. Fuzzy logic model uses triangular and trapezoidal membership function because of its higher predictive accuracy to predict the engine performance and emission characteristics. Computational results clearly demonstrate that, the proposed fuzzy model has produced fewer deviations and has exhibited higher predictive accuracy with acceptable determination correlation coefficients of 0.99136 to 1 with experimental values. The developed fuzzy logic model has produced good correlation between the fuzzy predicted and experimental values. So it is found to be useful for predicting the engine performance and emission characteristics with limited number of available data.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.37-42
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• 2005

The non-destructive Inspection of the fillet weldment has difficulties due to its geometrical complexity and uneasy access. The surface shear horizontal wave (SH-wave), however, has been successfully applied to the detection of cracks on the surface and sub-surface of the filet weldment heel part. The conventional ultrasonic inspection using the surface SH-wave is usually a contact method using piezoelectric transducer. Thus, it is not suitable for a field application because the reliability and repeatability of inspection are significantly affected by test conditions such as couplant, contact pressure and pre-process. In order to overcome this problem, a non-contact SH-wave inspection method using EMAT is propose. The experimental results with this non-contact method are compared with those with a conventional ultrasonic method in fillet weldment with slit type defects. It is shown that the non-contact inspection technique requires simple procedure and less time in the fillet weldment inspection.