• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.589-598
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• 2002

The safe operation of petrochemical plant requires screening of the pipework to ensure that there are no unacceptable levels of corrosion. Unfortunately, each plant has many thousands of metres of pipe, much of which is insulated or inaccessible. Conventional methods such as visual inspection and ultrasonic thickness gauging require access to each point of the pipe which is time consuming and very expensive to achieve. Extensional or torsional ultrasonic guided waves in the pipe wall provide an attractive solution to this problem because they can be excited at one location on the pipe and will propagate many metres along the pipe, returning echoes indicating the presence of corrosion or other pipe features. Guided Ultrasonics Ltd have now commercialised the technique and this paper describes the basis of the method, together with examples of practical test results and typical application areas.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.263-268
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• 2004

In the present study, a Nd;YAG Laser (pulse type) was used to emit ultrasonic signals to a test material. In addition, a total ultrasonic investigation system was designed by adopting a Fabry-Perot interferometer, which receives ultrasonic signals without any contact. For non-destructive test SM45C, which contains some flaws was used as a test material. Because it is easy to align light beam in receiver, and the length of the light beam does not change much even if convex mirror leans towards one side, confocal Fabry-Perot interferometer, which has stable frequency, and PI control are used to correct interfered and unstable signals from temperature, fluctuation and time shift of laser frequency. Stable signals are always obtained by the feedback of PI circuit signals in the confocal Fabry-Perot interferometer. The type, size and position of flaws inside the test material were examined by achieving the stabilization of an interferometer. This study presented a useful method, which could quantitatively investigate the fault of objects by using a Fabry-Perot interferometer.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.156-164
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• 2003

STS316L had been used as the structural material for energy environmental facilities, because austenite stainless steels like 316L have superior mechanical properties of which toughness, ductility, corrosion resistant and etc. However, those welded structures are receiving severe damage due to increasing of the aged degradation. Most studies until now have been carried out against fatigue behaviors of weldments, and were not well studied on nondestructive evaluation methods. In this study, the fatigue crack propagation behavior of STS316L weldment usually used for vessels of the nuclear power plant was investigated. Also, the degradation characteristics of 316L stainless steel weldments were evaluated by the ultrasonic parameter such as ultrasonic velocity, attenuation factor and time-frequency analysis. The results of this study can be used as a basic data for the prediction of the fatigue crack life of weldments structures without disjointing or stopping service of structures in service.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.783-786
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• 1999

The compressive strength of concrete is one of the most important properties in concrete structures. There are, two methods for the testing of concrete compressive strength in structure ; coring and nondestructive testing. The latter is more often used than the former in a view of time and expenses. The Nondestructive test methods used nowadays include Rebound Hammer test and Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity test. Carbonation through aging makes changes of the interior structure and the properties of concrete. It is well-known fact that the surface hardness of concrete is increased by its carbonation. This fact makes it difficult in estimating the compressive strength of concrete using Rebound Hammer test. This study aimed to quantitatively analyzed the effects of carbonation on results of the Rebound Hammer test.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.185-191
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• 2012

Typically, a wedge is involved to generate effectively high inspection angle in pipe weld inspection using phased array ultrasonic technique. But the usage of this wedge for weld or access limited area can cause coverage limitation for the examination volume because of the wedge front length. Therefore, the shear wave phased array probe which can generate high inspection angle without wedge is essentially necessary. In this paper, the shear wave phased array ultrasonic probe which can generate high inspection angle designed by modeling and manufactured from the modelling result. And this shear wave probe tested whether it can detect and sizing for EDM test block that contains various depth. As results, the experimental results show that the designed shear wave phased array probe can detect and size with reliable accuracy. Therefore if this phased array probe apply in field inspection, it is expected that it show more reliable inspection result for plant structure having access limitation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.384-389
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• 2014

In this paper, the result of an ultrasonic performance demonstration are analyzed. The requirements for an ultrasonic performance demonstration (PD) for a nuclear power plant were first described in ASME B&P Code Section XI, Appendix VIII (1989 winter addenda). In order to establish the performance demonstration scheme in Korean nuclear power plants, the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd (KHNP) has developed the Korean Performance Demonstration (KPD) system for the for the ultrasonic examination of nuclear power plants. An analysis of the ultrasonic performance demonstration results from 2004 through 2013 will improve the detection of flaws in an ultrasonic examination, as well as the further development of the KPD training system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.241-247
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• 2014

This study presents the ultrasonic nonlinearity of AISI316 austenitic stainless steels subjected to longterm isothermal aging. These steels are attractive materials for use in industrial mechanical structures because of their strength at high-temperatures and their chemical stability. The test materials were subjected to accelerated heat-treatment in an electrical furnace for a predetermined aging duration. The variations in the ultrasonic nonlinearity and microstructural damage were carefully evaluated through observation of the microstructure. The ultrasonic nonlinearity stiffly dropped after aging for up to 1000 h and, then, monotonously decreased. The polygonal shape of the initial grain structures changed to circular, especially as the annealing twins in the grains dissolved and disappeared. The delta ferrite on the grain boundaries could not be observed at 1000 h of aging, and these continuously transformed into their sigma phases. Consequently, in the intial aging period, the rapid decrease in the ultrasonic nonlinearity was caused by voids, dislocations, and twin annihilation. The continuous monotonic decrease in the ultrasonic nonlinearity after the first drop resulted from the generation of $Cr_{23}C_6$ precipitates and ${\sigma}$ phases.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.531-537
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• 2008

One of the fundamental features of time reversal acoustic (TRA) techniques is the ability to focus the propagating ultrasonic beam to a specific point within the test material. Therefore, it is important to understand the focusing properties of a TR device in many applications including nondestructive testing. In this paper, we employ an analytical scheme for the analysis of TR beam focusing in a homogeneous medium. More specifically, a nonparaxial multi-Gaussian beam (NMGB) model is used to simulate the focusing behavior of array transducers composed of multiple rectangular elements. The NMGB model is found to generate accurate beam fields beyond the nonparaxial region. Two different simulation cases are considered here for the focal points specified on and off from the central axis of the array transducer. The simulation results show that the focal spot size increases with increasing focal length and focal angle. Furthermore, the maximum velocity amplitude does not always coincide with the specified focal point. Simulation results for the off-axis focusing cases do demonstrate the accurate steering capability of the TR focusing.

• International Journal of Reliability and Applications
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2004

Ultrasonic inspection system consist of the examination procedures, equipment, and operators. The reliability of nondestructive testing is influenced by the inspection environment, materials and types of defect. It is very difficult to estimate the reliability of NDT due to the various factors. Piping inspection round robin was conducted to quantify the capability of ultrasonic inspection during in-service. In this study, the models for predicting the ultrasonic NDE reliability by logistic model and linear regression model are discussed. The utility of the NDT reliability assessment is verified by the analysis of the data from round robin test with these models.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.110-117
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• 1999

In order to ultrasonically evaluate creep cavities pure copper samples were subjected to creep test and their microstructures were examined. Ultrasonic velocities. frequency-dependent magnitude spectra and attenuations were measured on a series of copper samples obtained from the different stages of creep test. Velocities measured in three directions with respect to the loading axis decreased and their anisotropy increased as a function of the creep-induced porosity. The anisotropic behavior could be attributed to the progressive change of pore shape and preferred orientation as the creep advanced. The 2% porosity by volume decreased the longitudinal and shear wave velocities by 11% and 4%, respectively. Furthermore, both velocities decreased nonlinearly with the porosity. As the creep damage developed, the magnitude spectra lost high frequency components and their central frequencies shifted to lower values. The attenuation showed almost linear behavior in the frequency range used. Normalized velocity, central frequency shift and attenuation slope were selected as nondestructive evaluation parameters. These results were presented and showed good relations with the porosity content.