• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.502-508
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• 2012

Quantitative ultrasound technologies for osteoporosis diagnosis measure ultrasonic parameters such as speed of sound(SOS) and normalized broadband ultrasound attenuation(nBUA) in the calcaneus (heel bone). In the present study, the dependences of SOS and nBUA on bone mineral density in the proximal femur with high risk of fracture were investigated by using 20 trabecular bone samples extracted from bovine femurs. SOS and nBUA in the femoral trabecular bone samples were measured by using a transverse transmission method with one matched pair of ultrasonic transducers with a center frequency of 1.0 MHz. SOS and nBUA measured in the 20 trabecular bone samples exhibited high Pearson's correlation coefficients (r) of r = 0.83 and 0.72 with apparent bone density, respectively. The multiple regression analysis with SOS and nBUA as independent variables and apparent bone density as a dependent variable showed that the correlation coefficient r = 0.85 of the multiple linear regression model was higher than those of the simple linear regression model with either parameter SOS or nBUA as an independent variable. These high linear correlations between the ultrasonic parameters and the bone density suggest that the ultrasonic parameters measured in the femur can be useful for predicting the femoral bone mineral density.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.361-367
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• 2024

Ultrasound in the air is widely used in industry as a measurement technique to prevent abnormalities in the machinery. Recently, the use of airborne ultrasound imaging techniques, which can find the location of abnormalities using an array transducers, is increasing. A beamforming method that uses the phase difference for each sensor is used to visualize the location of the ultrasonic sound source. We exploit a random sparse ultrasonic array and obtain beamforming power distribution on the source in a certain distance away from the array. Conventional beamforming methods inevitably have limited spatial resolution depending on the number of sensors used and the aperture size. A high-resolution ultrasound imaging technique was implemented by applying functional beamforming as a method to overcome the geometric constraints of the array. The functional beamforming method can be expressed as a generalized beam forming method mathematically, and has the advantage of being able to obtain high-resolution imaging by reducing main-lobe width and side lobes. As a result of observation through computer simulation, it was verified that the resolution of the ultrasonic source in the air was successfully increased by functional beamforming using the ultrasonic sparse array.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.56-62
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• 2011

In the present study, the phase velocities of guided ultrasonic waves such as the first arriving signal (FAS) and the slow guided wave (SGW) propagating along the long axis on the 12 tubular cortical bone samples in vitro were measured and their correlations with the cortical thickness were investigated. The phase velocities of the FAS and the SGW were measured by using the axial transmission method in air with a pair of unfocused ultrasonic transducers with a diameter of 12.7 mm and a center frequency of 200 kHz. The phase velocity of the FAS measured at 200 kHz exhibited a very high negative correlation with the cortical thickness and that of the SGW arriving after the FAS showed a high positive correlation with the cortical thickness. The simple and multiple linear regression models with the phase velocities of the FAS and the SGW as independent variables and the cortical thickness as a dependent variable revealed that the coefficient of determination of the multiple linear regression model was higher than those of the simple linear regression models. The phase velocities of the FAS and the SGW measured at 200 kHz on the 12 tubular cortical bone samples were, respectively, consistent with those of the S0 and the A0 Lamb modes calculated at 200 kHz on the cortical bone plate.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.193-197
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• 2013

In this study, ultrasonic nonlinear characteristics in the heat-treated aluminum alloy have been evaluated. The nonlinearity of ultrasonic wave has been measured as the acoustic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$, depending upon the amplitude ratio of the second-order harmonic and the fundamental frequency component of ultrasonic wave propagating through the materials. The parameter ${\beta}$ measurement has been carried out with the reflected signals from the back-wall of specimens at the same plane using the contact-type transducers. The heat-treatment, aging, has been achieved at $300^{\circ}C$ for various durations in the range of 1 to 50 hours. The tensile strength and elongation are obtained by the tensile test and then compared with the parameter ${\beta}$. There is a peak of the acoustic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ on 5 hours aging and the ${\beta}$ decreases thereafter, exhibiting closed relations with tensile strength and elongation. Also, the heat-treatment time showing peak in the parameter ${\beta}$ was identical to that showing severe change in the ${\sigma}-{\varepsilon}$ curve. These results suggest that the acoustic nonlinear parameter ${\beta}$ can be used for monitoring the strength variations with aging of aluminum alloys.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.40-47
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• 1993

Composites composed of a precipitation harden 2124 alloy matrix reinforced by SiC whiskers, which are fabricated by powder metallugy, are suscepttible to fatigue damage due to the pile-up of moving dislocation and the microcrack initiation along SiC-Al interfaces, especially at the external surfaces of a body. The initial process, such as pile-up of dislocation or microcrack, that corresponds to the stage I during fatigue failure process are too small to be detected and characterized by conventional ultrasonic technique. This paper describes the applicability of an acoustic microscope with Line-Focus-Beam(LFB) lens of 225MHz to evaluate fatigue damage of SiC whiskers reinforced Al alloy. The specimens which were 6.6mm thick, 13mm wide, and 105mm long in the gage section were fatigued in tension-tension under load control. The velocity of leaky surface and leaky pseudosurface acoustic waves are obtained by FFT analysis technique from V(z) curve which is a record of output of piezoelectric transducer. These results are discussed with the change of number of fatigue cycles. The result obtained by acoustic microscope is compared with that by ultrasonic technique generated at 5MHz with conventional surface wave transducers.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.354-360
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• 2002

The piezoelectric composites had many advantages in comparison with conventional piezoelectric ceramics and piezopolymers for ultrasonic transducers used in NDT and in medical ultrasionic imaging. The electromechanical coupling coefficient should be high and the acoustic impedance should be low in these applications. However, the cross-coupling with spurious oscillations caused by laterally running plate waves exhibited complex motions in the surface of piezoelectric composites with coarse lateral spatial scale. The thickness mode electromechanical coupling coefficient of 1-3type of piezoelectric compoistes were 0.36 to 0.64, and the acoustic impedance of them were 9.8 to 22.7 MRayl. The lateral resonance frequency of 1-3 type piezoelectric composites shifted to high frequency region with decreasing lateral spatial scale.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.166-173
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• 2018

In order to investigate the effect of Mn on the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of PMN-PT [$Pb(Mg_{1/3}Nb_{2/3})O_3-PbTiO_3$], four different types of 71PMN-29PT samples were prepared using the solid-state single crystal growth (SSCG) method: (1) Undoped single crystals, (2) undoped polycrystalline ceramics, (3) Mn-doped single crystals, and (4) Mn-doped polycrystalline ceramics. In the case of single crystals, the addition of 0.5 mol% Mn to PMN-PT decreased the dielectric constant ($K_3{^T}$), piezoelectric charge constant ($d_{33}$), and dielectric loss (tan ${\delta}$) by about 50%, but increased the coercive electric field ($E_C$) by 50% and the electromechanical quality factor ($Q_m$) by 500%, respectively. The addition of Mn to PMN-PT induced an internal bias electric field ($E_I$) and thus specimens changed from piezoelectrically soft-type to piezoelectrically hard-type. This Mn effect was more significant in single crystals than in ceramics. These results demonstrate that Mn-doped 71PMN-29PT single crystals, because they are piezoelectrically hard and simultaneously have high piezoelectric and electromechanical properties, have great potential for application in fields of SONAR transducers, high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), and ultrasonic motors.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.40-46
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• 2011

In the field application of the conventional acoustic nonlinear technique using through transmission of bulk waves to evaluate the contact acoustic nonlinearity(CAN) in solid-solid contact interfaces like as in the closed crack, it has difficulty to access inner position for attaching the pulsing or receiving transducer. In the present study, a new reflection technique has been suggested to measure the acoustic nonlinearity in solid-solid contact interfaces, which uses both of pulsing and receiving transducers on the same side of target and so that it will be very useful for the field application. For this, based on the linear and the nonlinear contact stiffness estimated by the power-model of the contacting pressure, the nonlinear parameter of the reflected ultrasonic wave at the interfaces has been theoretically calculated. Experimental results in contact interfaces of A1606l-T6 alloy specimens with loading pressure showed good agreement with the theoretical predictions, which proves the validity of the suggested reflection mode technique.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.57-65
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• 2001

In this paper, we designed the acoustic horn for magnetostrictive ultrasonic transducers in a theoretical manner, and validity of the analysis was verified through comparison with the results of finite element analysis. Results of the two analysis methods showed good agreement with each other. The theoretical method can fairly quickly determine the horn length that satisfies given frequency specification, but also has the drawback that it is applicable only to the frequency range over the cut-off frequency. According to the results, the catenoidal horn can provide larger amplification than the exponential horn. It was also found that it is more desirable for the region having the catenoidal curvature to be as short as possible to achieve larger amplification of the transducer deformation. Based on the analysis results, a magneto-strictive transducer sample was fabricated and its performance was evaluated experimentally. The transducer has the resonance frequency of 19.3 ㎑ as well as the maximum SPL of 199 dB, and shows the omni-directional radiation pattern.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2000

In this paper, we proposed an algorithm that used a direct method to set an initial value of Broydon-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno(BFGS) method and, accordingly, conducted an experiment in optimal directivity synthesis of adaptive ultrasonic transducer by point source array. To certify the efficiency of this method, quasi-ideal beam with arbitrary beam width, rotating beam, and multi beam, all with the limited side lobe level -30dB, were chosen to check the problem of directivity synthesis that was formed by point source array in the second dimensional sound field. The numerical calculation results showed that the proposed method performed the directivity synthesis faster than the BFGS method did. In addition, the proposed method showed a good error correction for directivity synthesis, and did not demand the choice of initial value. Finally, it is also shown that the proposed method can be used for the adaptive control that was not possible with the direct method alone.