• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.291-299
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• 2001

Recently, severe wear on the shutdown rod cladding of Ulchin Nuclear Power Plant #1, #2 were observed by the Eddy Current Test(E.C.T.). In particular, the wear at the sixth card location was up to 75%. The test results indicated that the Flow Induced Vibration(F.I.V.) might be the cause of the fretting wear resulting from the contact between Rod Cluster Control Assemblies(RCCAs) and their spacing cards(guide plates) arranged in the guide tube. From reviewing RCCAs fretting wear repots and analyzing the general characteristics of F.I.V. mechanism in the reactor, geometric layout and flow conditions around the control rod, it is concluded that the turbulence excitation is the most probable vibration mechanism of RCCA. To identify the governing mechanism of RCCA vibration, an experiment was performed for a representative rod position in which the most serious fretting wear experienced among the six rod positions. The experimental rig was designed and set up to satisfy the governing nondimensional numbers which are Reynolds number and mass damping parameter. The vibration amplitude measurement by the non-contact laser displacement sensor showed good agreements in the frequency and the maximum wearing(vibration) location with Ulchin E.C.T. results and Framatome report, respectively. The sudden increase in the vibration amplitude was sensed around the 6th guide plate with mass flow rate variation. Comparing the similitude rod behaviour with the idealized response of a cylinder in flow induced vibration, it was found that he dominant mechanism of vibration was transferred from turbulence excitation to periodic shedding at the mass flow ate 90ι/min. Also the critical velocity of the vibration in RCCAs was determined and the vibration can be prevented by reducing the bypass flow rate below the critical velocity.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.325-330
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• 2007

For the application to optic devices, wafer level package including spacer with particular thickness according to optical design could be required. In these cases, the uniformity of spacer thickness is important for bonding strength and optical performance. Packaging process has to be performed at low temperature in order to prevent damage to devices fabricated before packaging. And if photosensitive material is used as spacer layer, size and shape of pattern and thickness of spacer can be easily controlled. This paper presents polymer bonding using thick, uniform and patterned spacing layer of SU-8 2100 photoresist for wafer level package. SU-8, negative photoresist, can be coated uniformly by spin coater and it is cured at $95^{\circ}C$ and bonded well near the temperature. It can be bonded to silicon well, patterned with high aspect ratio and easy to form thick layer due to its high viscosity. It is also mechanically strong, chemically resistive and thermally stable. But adhesion of SU-8 to glass is poor, and in the case of forming thick layer, SU-8 layer leans from the perpendicular due to imbalance to gravity. To solve leaning problem, the wafer rotating system was introduced. Imbalance to gravity of thick layer was cancelled out through rotating wafer during curing time. And depositing additional layer of gold onto glass could improve adhesion strength of SU-8 to glass. Conclusively, we established the coating condition for forming patterned SU-8 layer with $400{\mu}m$ of thickness and 3.25 % of uniformity through single coating. Also we improved tensile strength from hundreds kPa to maximum 9.43 MPa through depositing gold layer onto glass substrate.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.427-435
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• 2016

Array Gain (AG) is a metric to measure the performance of an array of acoustic sensors. AG is affected by the configuration of array, frequency and array element spacing, and the directivity of the ambient noise. In this paper, an algorithm to calculate AG based on the spatial coherence is used, and the results are verified through sea-going experiment. The method using the spatial coherence can be used to consider the arbitrary shape of an array and directionality of ambient noise. In the sea-going experiment, the towed source was used to transmit the Continuous Wave (CW), and was received at the horizontal line array on the seabed. The ambient noise was measured between the source transmission. The experimental AG was calculated from the SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) of single sensor and an array of sensors. Finally, the predicted AG is shown to agree with the experimental value of AG.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.328-333
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• 2023

This study experimentally verified the etch rate of the SiO₂ sacrificial layer etching process with a single etch hole using vapor-phase hydrogen fluoride (VHF) etching. To fabricate small-sized polysilicon etch holes, both circular and triangular pattern masks were employed. Etch holes were fabricated in the polysilicon thin film on the SiO₂ sacrificial layer, and VHF etching was performed to release the polysilicon thin film. The lateral etch rate was measured for varying etch hole sizes and sacrificial layer thicknesses. Based on the measured results, we obtained an approximate equation for the etch rate as a function of the etch hole size and sacrificial layer thickness. The etch rates obtained in this study can be utilized to minimize structural damage caused by incomplete or excessive etching in sacrificial layer processes. In addition, the results of this study provide insights for optimizing sacrificial layer etching and properly designing the size and spacing of the etch holes. In the future, further research will be conducted to explore the formation of structures using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes to simultaneously seal etch hole and prevent adhesion owing to polysilicon film vibration.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.89-94
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• 2024

Since Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) uses an array with narrow sensor spacing, precise synchronization is required to improve source localization performances. However, in the underwater environment, synchronization errors occur due to relatively strong noise and underwater acoustic channels such as multipath and Doppler, which deteriorates the source localization performances. This paper proposes a covariance-based synchronization compensation method to improve the source localization performances of the underwater USBL systems. The proposed method arranges the received signals through cross-correlation and calculates the covariance of the arranged signals. The synchronization error is related to the phase difference in the covariance. Thus, the phase difference is estimated as the covariance and compensated. Computer simulations demonstrate that the proposed method has better source localization performances than the conventional cross-correlation method.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.252-252
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• 2017

Nowadays water shortage is becoming one of the biggest problems in the Korea. Many different methods are developed for conservation of water. Soil water management has become the most indispensable factor for augmenting the crop productivity especially on soybean (Glycine max L.) because of their high susceptibility to both water stress and water logging at various growth stages. The farmers have been using irrigation techniques through manual control which farmers irrigate lands at regular intervals. Automatic irrigation systems are convenient, especially for those who need to travel. If automatic irrigation systems are installed and programmed properly, they can even save you money and help in water conservation. Automatic irrigation systems can be programmed to provide automatic irrigation to the plants which helps in saving money and water and to discharge more precise amounts of water in a targeted area, which promotes water conservation. The objective of this study was to determine the possible effect of automatic irrigation systems based on soil moisture on soybean growth. This experiment was conducted on an upland field with sandy loam soils in Department of Southern Area Crop, NICS, RDA. The study had three different irrigation methods; sprinkle irrigation (SI), surface drip irrigation (SDI) and fountain irrigation (FI). SI was installed at spacing of $7{\times}7m$ and $1.8m^3/hr$ as square for per irrigation plot, a lateral pipe of SDI was laid down to 1.2 m row spacing with $2.3L\;h^{-1}$ discharge rate, the distance between laterals was 20 cm spacing between drippers and FI was laid down in 3m interval as square for per irrigation plot. Soybean (Daewon) cultivar was sown in the June $20^{th}$, 2016, planted in 2 rows of apart in 1.2 m wide rows and distance between hills was 20 cm. All agronomic practices were done as the recommended cultivation. This automatic irrigation system had valves to turn irrigation on/off easily by automated controller, solenoids and moisture sensor which were set the reference level as available soil moisture levels of 30% at 10cm depth. The efficiency of applied irrigation was obtained by dividing the total water stored in the effective root zone to the applied irrigation water. Results showed that seasonal applied irrigation water amounts were $60.4ton\;10a^{-1}$ (SI), $47.3ton\;10a^{-1}$ (SDI) and $92.6 ton\;10a^{-1}$ (FI), respectively. The most significant advantage of SDI system was that water was supplied near the root zone of plants drip by drip. This system saved a large quantity of water by 27.5% and 95.6% compared to SI, FI system. The average soybean yield was significantly affected by different irrigation methods. The soybean yield by different irrigation methods were $309.7kg\;10a^{-1}$ from SDI $282.2kg\;10a^{-1}$ from SI, $289.4kg\;10a^{-1}$ from FI, and $206.3kg\;10a^{-1}$ from control, respectively. SDI resulted in increase of soybean yield by 50.1%, 7.0% 9.8% compared to non-irrigation (control), FI and SI, respectively. Therefore, the automatic irrigation system supplied water only when the soil moisture in the soil went below the reference. Due to the direct transfer of water to the roots water conservation took place and also helped to maintain the moisture to soil ratio at the root zone constant. Thus the system is efficient and compatible to changing environment. The automatic irrigation system provides with several benefits and can operate with less manpower. In conclusion, improving automatic irrigation system can contribute greatly to reducing production costs of crops and making the industry more competitive and sustainable.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.10 no.12
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• pp.2151-2156
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• 2006

Beamforming for underwater acoustic communication (UAC) is affected by the broadband feature of UAC signal, which has relatively low currier frequency as compared to the signal bandwidth. The narrow-band assumption does not hold good in UAC. In this paper, we discuss a broadband FIR beamformer for UAC using the baseband equivalent way signal model. We consider the broadband FIR beamformer for QPSK UAC with carrier frequency 25kHz and symbol rate 5kHz. Array geometry is a uniform linear way with 8 omni-directional elements and sensor spacing is the half of the carrier wavelength. The simulation results show that the broadband n beamformer achieves nearly optimum signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) and outperforms the conventional narrowband beamformer by SINR 0.5dB when two-tap FIR filter is employed at each sensor and the inter-tap delay is a quarter of the symbol interval. The broadband FIR beamformer performance is more degraded as the FIR filter length is increased above a certain value. If the inter-tap delay is not greater than half of the symbol period, SINR performance does not depend on the inter-tap delay. More training period is required when the inter-tap delay is same as the symbol period.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.142.2-142.2
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• 2018

One-dimensional metal oxide nanostructures have attracted considerable research activities owing to their strong application potential as components for nanosize electronic or optoelectronic devices utilizing superior optical and electrical properties. In which, semiconducting $SnO_2$ material with wide-bandgap Eg = 3.6 eV at room temperature, is one of the attractive candidates for optoelectronic devices operating at room temperature [1, 2], gas sensor [3, 4], and transparent conducting electrodes [5]. The synthesis and gas sensing properties of semiconducting $SnO_2$ nanomaterials have become one of important research issues since the first synthesis of SnO2 nanowires. In this study, $SnO_2$ nanowire networks were synthesized on a basis of a two-step process. In step 1, Sn spheres (30-800 nm in diameter) embedded in $SiO_2$ on a Si substrate was synthesized by a chemical vapor deposition method at $700^{\circ}C$. In step 2, using the source of these Sn spheres, $SnO_2$ nanowire (20-40 nm in diameter; $1-10{\mu}m$ in length) networks on a spherical Sn surface were synthesized by a thermal oxidation method at $800^{\circ}C$. The Au layers were pre-deposited on the surface of Sn spherical and subsequently oxidized Sn surface of Sn spherical formed SnO2 nanowires networks. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images indicated that $SnO_2$ nanowires are single crystalline. In addition, the $SnO_2$ nanowire is also a tetragonal rutile, with the preferred growth directions along [100] and a lattice spacing of 0.237 nm. Subsequently, the $NO_2$ sensing properties of the $SnO_2$ network nanowires sensor at an operating temperature of $50-250^{\circ}C$ were examined, and showed a reversible response to $NO_2$ at various $NO_2$ concentrations. Finally, details of the growth mechanism and formation of Sn spheres and $SnO_2$ nanowire networks are also discussed.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.403-421
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• 2023

As the number of underground structures has increased in recent decades, it has become crucial to predict geological hazards ahead of a tunnel face during tunnel construction. Consequently, this study developed a finite element (FE) numerical model to simulate electrical resistivity surveys in tunnel boring machine (TBM) operations for predicting mixed ground conditions in front of tunnel faces. The accuracy of the developed model was verified by comparing the numerical results not only with an analytical solution but also with experimental results. Using the developed model, a series of parametric studies were carried out to estimate the effect of geological conditions and sensor geometric configurations on electrical resistivity measurements. The results of these studies showed that both the interface slope and the difference in electrical resistivity between two different ground formations affect the patterns and variations in electrical resistivity observed during TBM excavation. Furthermore, it was revealed that selecting appropriate sensor spacing and optimizing the location of the electrode array were essential for enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of predictions related to mixed ground conditions. In conclusion, the developed model can serve as a powerful and reliable tool for predicting mixed ground conditions during TBM tunneling.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.109-115
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• 2006

Understanding characteristics of claypan soils has long been an issue for researchers and farmers because the high-clay subsoil has a pronounced effect on grain crop productivity. The claypan restricts water infiltration and storage within the crop root zone, but these effects are not uniform within fields. Conventional techniques of identifying claypan soil characteristics require manual probing and analysis which can be quite expensive; an expense most farmers are unwilling to pay. On the other hand, farmers would be very interested if this information could be obtained with easy-to-use field sensors. Two examples of sensors that show promise for helping in claypan soil characterization are soil profile strength sensing and bulk soil apparent electrical conductivity (ECa). Little has been reported on claypan soils relating the combined information from these two sensors with grain crop yield. The objective of this research was to identify the relationships of sensed profile soil strength and soil EC with nine years of crop yield (maize and soybean) from a claypan soil field in central Missouri. A multiple-probe (five probes on 19-cm spacing) cone penetrometer was used to measure soil strength and an electromagnetic induction sensor was used to measure soil EC at 55 grid site locations within a 4-ha research field. Crop yields were obtained using a combine equipped with a yield monitoring system. Soil strength at the 15 to 45 cm soil depth were significantly correlated to crop yield and ECa. Estimated crop yields from apparent electrical conductivity and soil strength were validated with an independent data set. Using measurements from these two sensors, standard error rates for estimating yield ranged from 9 to 16%. In conclusion, these results showed that the sensed profile soil strength and soil EC could be used as a measure of the soil productivity for grain crop production.