• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.317-323
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• 2010

The manual ultrasonic examination for the nuclear power plant piping welds has been demonstrated by using KPD(Korean Performance Demonstration) generic procedure. For automated ultrasonic examination, there is no generic procedure and it should be qualified by using applicable automated equipment. Until now, most of qualified procedures used pulse-echo technique and there is no qualified procedure using phased array technique. In this study, data acquisition and analysis software were developed and phased-array transducer and wedge were designed to implement phased array technique for nuclear power plant in-service inspection. The developed procedure are qualified for performance demonstration for the flaw detection, length sizing and depth sizing. The qualified procedure will be applied for the field examination in the nuclear power plant piping weld inspection.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.10 no.2 s.31
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• pp.61-67
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• 2006

We developed the ultrasonic phased array technique for obtaining ultrasonic images of electrofusion joints of polyethylene piping. And we inspected 4 cases at fields with this technique. First case is for the 300 mm diameter polyethylene electrofusion joint by using 3.5 MHz phased array sensor, second is for the 350 mm diameter saddle electrofusion joint, third is for the 400 mm diameter electrofusion joints and the last one is for the 400 mm diameter piping joints which will be used at 300 kPa suppling pressure.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.231-238
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• 2006

Nondestructive examination for low pressure turbine disc in standard nuclear power plant using phased array technique was studied. For this purpose, disc mockups were made and notches were machined in the mockups. Detection and length sizing by different methods are compared. Depth of deep notches could be measured by using AATT(absolute arrival time technique) or RATT(relative arrival time technique) but shallow notches that must be detected in early stage couldn't be measured by these two methods. For this case, notch depth was estimated by using signal response angle range and preyed usefulness.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.40-47
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• 2011

KSNPs(Korea Standard Nuclear Power Plant) have been applied the break exclusion criteria to the high energy lines passing through containment penetration area to ensure that piping failures would not cause the loss of containment isolation function, and to reduce the resulting dynamic effects. Systems with the criteria are the Main Steam system, Feed Water system, Steam Generator Blowdown system, and Chemical & Volume Control system. In accordance with FSAR(Final Safety Analysis Report), a 100% volumetric examination by augmented in-service inspection of all pipe welds appled the break exclusion criteria is required for the break exclusion application piping. However, it is difficult to fully satisfy the requirements of inspection because 12", 8" and 6" weldolet weldments of Main Steam pipe line have complex structural shapes. To resolve the difficulty on the application of conventional UT(Ultrasonic Testing) technique, realistic mock-ups and UT calibration blocks were made. Simulations of conventional UT were performed utilizing CIVA, a commercial NDE(Nondestructive Examination) simulation software. Phased array UT experiments were performed through mock-up including artificial notch type flaws. A phased array UT technique is finally developed to improve the reliability of ultrasonic test at main steam line pipe to 12", 8" and 6" branch connection weld.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.137-146
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• 2019

The ultrasonic phased arrays are used for treating tumors in the human body by the focus control of the acoustic pressure at the desired position. The magnitude and phase of the surface acoustic pressure in each ultrasonic transducer is controlled by the magnitude and phase of the applied voltage to it. In this paper, the relationship between the applied voltage and the surface acoustic pressure of the ultrasound transducer is modelled, and the desired voltage is realized by PWM technique. The validity of the proposed method is verified by computer simulation of the focus control of a ultrasonic phased array composed of 61 ultrasonic transducers.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.40-45
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• 2008

There exist many types of pipe and component fatigue through vibrations, thermal fatigues or shifting. In some cases of thermal stratification/thermal fatigue, pipes & components are receiving thermal stress by means of material expansion and shrinkage by continuous thermal repetitive variation. Small cracks initially occur on the inside surface by thermal stress. These cracks grow in depth the pipe wall and finally come to a rupture. Pipe parts of susceptibility to thermal stratification and thermal fatigue are now being examined by conventional UT(ultrasonic test) as volumetric examination. It is difficult to fully satisfy the code & standards requirements because 3" weldolet weldments of RCS 16" pipe to 3" branch connection lines have complex structural shape. To solve the problems of conventional UT examination, we made a realistic mock-up and UT calibration block. We performed a simulation of phased array UT utilizing CIVA as NDE(Non-Destructive Examination) simulation software. Also we designed phased array UT transducer and wedge, optimal frequency by using simulation data. We performed phased array UT experiment through mock-up including artificial flaws(notch). The phased array UT technique is finally developed to improve the reliability of ultrasonic test at RCS 16" pipe to 3" branch connection weld.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.151-157
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• 2004

Ultrasonic testing is a kind of nondestructive test to detect a crack or discontinuity in materials or on material surfaces by sending ultrasound to it. This conventional ultrasonic technique has some limitations in reliably detecting crack or accurately assessing materials in the case of complex-shaped power plant components such as a turbine blade root. An alternative method for such a difficult inspection is highly needed. In this study, application of a phased array ultrasonic testing (UT) system to a turbine blade, one of the critical power plant components, has been considered, and the particular incident angle has been determined so that the greatest track detectability and the most accurate crack length evaluation nay be achieved. The response of ultrasonic phased array was also analyzed to establish a special method to determine the track )ength without moving the transducer. The result showed that the developed method for crack length assessment is a more accurate and effective method, compared with the conventional method.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.69-76
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• 2010

The structural material with the highest possibility of new materials that will be used in the future construction field is fiber reinforced polymer. The current studies on FRP members by using such excellent material characteristics mostly focused on stability, composite problem, and durability of FRP members. The initially constructed FRP members secure excellent stability and durability compared to reinforced concrete and steel materials, but measures for defections during the periodical inspection, methods for detecting breakages, and maintenance and reinforcement are not insufficient. Accordingly, this study proposed a measurement system using the FRP sensor to evaluate the safety of the FRP modular box member, and applied the phased array ultrasonic technique to detect the defects and damage likely to occur during the performance period.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.635-641
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• 2011

In ultrasonic testing of dissimilar metal welds, application of phased array technique in terms of incident beam focusing is not easy because of complicated material structures formed during the multi-pass welding process. Time reversal(TR) techniques can overcome some limitations of phased array since they are self-focusing that does not depend on the geometrical and physical properties of testing components. In this paper, we test the possibility of TR focusing on a defect within anisotropic, heterogeneous austenitic welds. A commercial simulation software is employed for TR focusing and imaging of a side-drilled hole. The performance of time reversed adaptive focal law is compared with those of calculated focal laws for both anisotropic and isotropic welds.