• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.84-89
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• 2001

Ultrasonic pulse echo method comes to be difficult to apply to the multi-layered structure with very thin layer, because the echoes from the top and the bottom of the layer are overlapped. Conventionally method, deconvolution technique has been used for the decomposition of overlapped UT signals, however it has disabilities when the waveform of the transmitted signal is distorted according to the propagation. In this paper, the wavelet transform based deconvolution (WTBD) technique is proposed as a new signal processing method that can decompose the overlapped echo signals in A-Scan signal with superior performances compared to the conventional deconvolution technique. Performances of the proposed method are shown by through computer simulations using model signal with noise and are demonstrated by through experiments for the fabricated acryl rod with a thin steel plate bonded to it.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.233-239
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• 1999

The feasibility of an ultrasonic technique using a pulse-echo method of normal-incident compressional waves was evaluated for its sensitivity to the worn surface and near surface damage due to wear. Worn surfaces were generated at various oscillation frequency under a given load and amplitude and these surface were in situ monitored using a ultrasonic wave detection system. Analysis of the ultrasonic waves received from the worn surface revealed a close relationship between the surface and near-surface damage and the maximum echo-amplitude of the compressional waves. The ultrasonic technique was successful in assessing the level of severity of the worn surface in real time during the wear process. It is also shown that the wear depth can be easily measured by the calculation of change of the specimen thickness based on the wave speed measured for the specimen medium.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.351-356
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• 2000

The feasibility of an ultrasonic technique using a pulse-echo method of normal-incident compressional waves was evaluated for its sensitivity to the worn surface and near surface damage due to wear. Worn surfaces were generated at various oscillation frequency under a given load and amplitude and these surface were in situ monitored using a ultrasonic wave detection system. Analysis of the ultrasonic waves received from the worn surface revealed a close relationship between the surface and near-surface damage and the maximum echo-amplitude of the compressional waves. The ultrasonic technique was successful in assessing the level of severity of the worn surface in real time during the wear process. It is also shown that the wear depth can be easily measured by the calculation of change of the specimen thickness based on the wave speed measured for the specimen medium.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.81-86
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• 2003

This study proposes the neural network simulator for the integrity evaluation of weld zone in railway rails. For these purposes, the ultrasonic signals for defects(crack) of weld zone in frames are acquired in the type of time series data and echo strength. The detection of the natural defects in railway truck is performed using the characteristics of echodynamic pattern in ultrasonic signal. And then their applications evaluated feature extraction based on the time-frequency-attractor domain(peak to peak, rise time, rise slope, fall time, fall slope, pulse duration, power spectrum, and bandwidth) and attractor characteristics (fractal dimension and attractor quadrant) etc. The constructed neural network simulator agrees fairly well with the measured results of test block(defect location, beam propagation distance, echo strength, etc). The Proposed neural network simulator in this study can be used for the integrity evaluation of weld zone in railway rails.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.98-106
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• 2003

Nondestructive test (NDT) provides much information on concrete without damage of structural functions. Of NDT methods, elastic wave propagation methods, such as ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) method and impact-echo (IE) method, have been successfully used to estimate the strength, elastic modulus, and Poisson's ratio of concrete as well as to detect the internal microstructural change and defects. In this study, the concretes with water-binder ratio ranging from 0.27 to 0.50 and fly ash content of 20% were made and then their longitudinal wave velocities were measured by UPV and IE method, respectively. Test results showed that the UPV is greater than the longitudinal wave velocity measured by the If method, i.e., rod-wave velocity obtained from the same concrete cylinder. It was found that the difference between the two types of velocities decreased with increasing the ages of concrete and strength level. Moreover, for the empirical formula, the dynamic Poisson's ratio, static and dynamic moduli of elasticity, and velocity-strength relationship were determined. It was observed that the Poisson's ratio and the modulus of elasticity determined by the dynamic method are greater than those determined by the static test. Consequently, for the more accurate estimation of concrete properties using the elastic wave velocities, the characteristics of these velocities should be understood.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.311-315
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• 2004

The detection of lymph node metastasis is an important step in tumor staging and is significant for therapy planning. It has been challenged to yield an appropriate image with diagnostic methods such as Magnetic Resonance (MR) and Computed Tomography (CT). Though CT has been used widely and accessed easily to show internal organs, it can hardly provide difference between lymph node and adjacent vessel or fat tissue. It has been well established that MR can reveal the subtle discrepancy within soft tissue. This study investigated the suitability of MR lymph node imaging without contrast enhancement by comparison of T1-weighted image (T1WI) and T2- weighted image (T2WI) in ten normal rabbits. According to the pulse sequence optimized from preliminary study, T1-weighted spin-echo (repetition time/echo time=400/12 ms) and T-2 weighted fast spin-echo (repetition time/echo time=3500/84 ms) images covering the hind limbs and pelvic region were acquired at 1.5 T. Two radiologists scrupulously evaluated the MR images in consensus. And signal intensity of lymph nodes was compared with that of adjacent fat. Statistical analysis showed that T1-weighted coronal image visualized the lymph nodes (iliac, superficial inguinal and popliteal lymph nodes) quickly and consistently rather than T2-weighted one. Conclusively, T1WI for evaluation of lymph nodes is moderately better than T2WI and appears to have potential for quick and sufficient mapping of the lymph nodes. In addition, this normal MR image of lymph nodes could be applied to further study for the evaluation of lymphatic system in abscess and tumor bearing animal model.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2013.06a
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• pp.293-298
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• 2013

This research develops an ultrasonic sensor to measure the distance in underwater. The ultrasonic transducer transmits an acoustic signal to an object and receives the echo signal reflected from the object. The ultrasonic driver calculates a distance by multiplying the acoustic speed to the time of flight(TOF) which is the time necessary for the acoustic signal to travel from the transducer to the object. We apply a thresholding and a cross correlation methods to detect the TOF and show their results. When an echo pulse is corrupted with noise and its shape is distorted, the cross correlation method is used to find the TOF based on the maximum similarity between the reference and the delayed echo signals. The echoes used for the reference signal are achieved at the different environments, which improves the performance of the sensor. This paper describes the driver of the acoustic sensor and analyzes the performance of sensors in different measurement environments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.501-510
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• 2000

Recently, advanced signal analysis which is called "time-frequency analysis" has been used widely in nondestructive evaluation applications. Wavelet transform(WT) and Wigner Distribution are the most advanced techniques for processing signals with time-varying spectra. Wavelet analysis method is an attractive technique for evaluation of material characterization nondestructively. Wavelet transform is applied to the time-frequency analysis of ultrasonic echo waveform obtained by an ultrasonic pulse-echo technique. In this study, the feasibility of noise suppression of ultrasonic flaw signal and frequency-dependent ultrasonic group velocity and attenuation coefficient using wavelet analysis of ultrasonic echo waveform have been verified experimentally. The Gabor function is adopted the analyzing wavelet. The wavelet analysis shows that the variations of ultrasonic group velocity and attenuation coefficient due to the change of material characterization can be evaluated at each frequency. Furthermore, to assure the enhancement of detectability and naw sizing performance, both computer simulated results and experimental measurements using wavelet signal processing are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the noise suppression of ultrasonic flaw signal obtained from austenitic stainless steel weld including EDM notch.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.290-302
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• 2014

Purpose : Susceptibility-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) sequence is three-dimensional (3D), spoiled gradient-echo pulse sequences that provide a high sensitivity for the detection of blood degradation products, calcifications, and iron deposits. This pictorial review is aimed at illustrating and discussing its main clinical applications. Materials and Methods: SWI is based on high-resolution, 3D, fully velocity-compensated gradient-echo sequences using both magnitude and phase images. To enhance the visibility of the venous structures, the magnitude images are multiplied with a phase mask generated from the filtered phase data, which are displayed at best after post-processing of the 3D dataset with the minimal intensity projection algorithm. A total of 200 patients underwent MR examinations that included SWI on a 3 tesla MR imager were enrolled. Results: SWI is very useful in detecting multiple brain disorders. Among the 200 patients, 80 showed developmental venous anomaly, 22 showed cavernous malformation, 12 showed calcifications in various conditions, 21 showed cerebrovascular accident with susceptibility vessel sign or microbleeds, 52 showed brain tumors, 2 showed diffuse axonal injury, 3 showed arteriovenous malformation, 5 showed dural arteriovenous fistula, 1 showed moyamoya disease, and 2 showed Parkinson's disease. Conclusion: SWI is useful in detecting occult low flow vascular lesions, calcification and microbleed and characterising diverse brain disorders.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.42-51
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• 2000

Purpose: Projection-type Fast Spin Echo (PFSE) imaging is robust to patient motion or flow related artifact compared to conventional Fast Spin Echo (FSE) imaging, however, it has difficulty in controlling $T_2$ contrast. In this paper, Tz contrast in the PFSE method is analyzed and compared with those of the FSE method with various effective echo times by computer simulation. The contrasts in the FSE and PFSE methods are also compared by experiments with volunteers. From the analysis and simulation, it is shown that ${T_2}-weighted$ images can well be obtained by the PFSE method proposed. Materials and methods: Pulse sequence for the PFSE method is implemented at a 1.0 Tesla whole body MRI system and $T_2$ contrasts in the PFSE and FSE methods are analyzed by computer simulation and experiment with volunteers. For the simulation, a mathematical phantom composed of various $T_2$ values is devised and $T_2$ contrast in the reconstructed image by the PFSE is compared to those by the FSE method with various effective echo times. Multi-slice ${T_2}-weighted$ head images of the volunteers obtained by the PFSE method are also shown in comparison with those by the FSE method at a 1.0 Tesla whole body MRI system. Results: From the analysis, $T_2$ contrast by the PFSE method appears similar to those by the FSE method with the effective echo time in a range of SO-lOOms. Using a mathematical phantom, contrast in the PFSE image appears close to that by the FSE method with the effective echo time of 96ms. From experiment with volunteers, multi-slice $T_2-weighted$ images are obtained by the PFSE method having contrast similar to that of the FSE method with the effective echo time of 96ms. Reconstructed images by the PFSE method show less motion related artifact compared to those by the FSE method. Conclusion: The projection-type FSE imaging acquires multiple radial lines with different angles in polar coordinate in k space using multiple spin echoes. The PFSE method is robust to patient motion or flow, however, it has difficulty in controlling $T_2$ contrast compared to the FSE method. In this paper, it is shown that the PFSE method provides good $T_2$ contrast (${T_2}-weighted$ images) similar to the FSE method by both computer simulation and experiments with volunteers.