• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2261-2266
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• 2011

Being the most widely used in ultrasound Doppler color flow mapping, the Kasai algorithm, also known as lag-1 autocorrelation method, is capable of estimating the Doppler mean frequency relatively accurately with a modest amount of computation. Particularly in the case of imaging deep lying areas, however, its performance suffers due to low signal-to-noise ratios. The purpose of this paper is to propose a dealiased lag-2 autocorrelation method which is superior to the Kasai algorithm even at low signal-to-noise ratios and to compare their performances through simulations. The proposed algorithm is found to be better by about 2 to 3 dB than the Kasai algorithm in terms of Doppler mean frequency estimation error in the presence of measurement noise.

• International Journal of Vascular Biomedical Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.6-13
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• 2005

Individual clinical significance of each layer of CCA (common carotid artery) has not been well studied. We intended to measure the intima thickness (IT), media thickness (MT), and intima-media thickness (IMT) of CCA separately and tried to analyze the clinical significance. One hundred fifty one consecutive patients (mean age: $57{\pm}15$ years; 77 males, 74 females) underwent CCA scanning using high-resolution ultrasound. The images were off-line analyzed using B-mode ultrasound image processing, devised for individual measurement of IT and MT as well as IMT. The mean coefficients of variation of new method measuring IT, MT, and IMT separately were 0.16% for IMT and 0.21% for both IT and MT. The IT (p < 0.01), MT (p < 0.01) as well as IMT (p < 0.001) of patients with atherosclerotic disease were significantly thicker than that of the patients without atherosclerotic disease. Patients with hypertension showed significantly thicker IT (p < 0.01), MT (p < 0.001), and IMT (p < 0.001) than that of the patients without hypertension. However, only IT was thicker in patients with smoking (p<0.01) than that of the patients without smoking.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.546-551
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• 2010

The objective of this research is to estimate the crack location and size of a carbon steel pipe by using a laser ultrasound guided wave for the wall thinning evaluation of an elbow. The wall thinning of the carbon steel pipe is one of the most serious problems in nuclear power plants, especially the wall thinning of the carbon steel elbow caused by Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC). Therefore, a non-destructive inspection method of elbow is essential for the nuclear power plants to operate safely. The specimens used in this study were carbon steel elbows, which represented the main elements of real nuclear power plants. The shape of the wall thinning was an oval with a width of 120mm, a length of 80mm, and a depth of 5mm. The L(0,1) and L(0,2) modes variation of the ultrasound guided wave signal is obtained from the response of the laser generation/air-coupled detection ultrasonic hybrid system represent the characteristics of the defect. The trends of these characteristics and signal processing were used to estimate the size and location of wall thinning.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.158-165
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• 2017

The physical shape of an ultrasound transducer has not been considered in previous studies of the photoacoustic saturation effect, where a photoacoustic signal's magnitude linearly increases as an absorption coefficient increases and it is finally saturated. In this paper, the effect of a spherically focused ultrasound transducer on photoacoustic nonlinearity is investigated. The focused ultrasound transducer's spatial filtering effect on photoacoustic signals is analytically derived considering the combined concept of a virtual point detector and Green function approach. The ultrasound transducer's temporal response (i.e., transfer function) effect on photoacoustic signals is considered by integrating photoacoustic signal values within the absorption area covered by a spatial resolution of the ultrasound transducer. Results from the analytically derived expression show that the magnitude of photoacoustic signals measured by a spherical focused ultrasound transducer shows a maximum at a specific absorption coefficient, and decreases after that maximum point as an absorption coefficient is increased. The origin of this photoacoustic nonlinearity is physically understood by comparing the ultrasound transducer's transfer functions and photoacoustic resonance spectra. In addition, this physical interpretation implies that the photoacoustic nonlinearity is strongly dependent on the irradiance distribution inside an absorption medium.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.183-186
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• 2011

본 논문에서는 모바일 초음파(mobile ultrasound) 영상신호의 빔포밍 알고리즘에서 요구되는 고성능 및 저전력을 만족시키는 매니코어 프로세서에 대한 디자인 공간 탐색 방법을 소개한다. 매니코어 프로세서의 디자인 공간 탐색을 위해 매니코어의 각 프로세싱 엘리먼트(Processing Element, PE)당 초음파 영상신호 데이터의 수를 변화시키는 실험을 통해 실행시간, 에너지 효율 및 시스템 면적 효율을 측정하고, 측정된 결과를 바탕으로 최적의 매니코어 프로세서 구조를 선택하였다.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.300-308
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• 2014

Photoacoustic imaging is a useful tool for the diagnosis of atherosclerosis because it is capable of providing anatomical and pathological information at the same time. A photoacoustic signal detector is a pivotal element to achieve high spatial resolution, so that it should have broadband spectrum with a high center frequency. Since a photoacoustic imaging probe is directly inserted into blood vessel to diagnose atherosclerosis, the total size of the photoacoustic signal detector should be less than 1 mm. The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that PVDF can be used as an active material for the photoacoustic signal detector with a high frequency and broadband characteristic. The photoacoustic signal detector developed in this study was a single element ultrasound transducer with an aperture of $0.5{\times}0.5mm$ and the total size of 1 mm. In the design stage, the natural focal depth was adjusted for an effective focal area to cover the region of interest, i.e., 1~5 mm in depth. This was because geometrical focusing could not be used due to the small aperture. Through a pulse-echo test, it was ascertained that the developed photoacoustic signal detector has the -6 dB bandwidth ranging between 40.1 and 112.8 MHz and the center frequency of 76.83 MHz.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.204-209
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• 2005

The respiration measurement method using the ultrasound sensor hardly gets an influence of an error of inertia and pressure and it is a respiratory detection device available semi-permanently. This device measures the amount and flow of respiration through using a delivery speed difference of the ultrasound waves that are a return format by the pneumatic stream that is a flogging of ultrasound waves during transmission and receipt as having used a characteristic of ultrasound waves. In this paper, it improved sensitivity of a signal to happen during transmission and receipt of a sensor because measurement must be performed with a patient to the center and measurement was played in a weak breathing so that it was possible.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.10b
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• pp.273-275
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• 2005

Active thermography is being used since several years for remote non-destructive testing. It provides thermal images for remote detection and imaging of damages. Also, it is based on propagation and reflection of thermal waves which are launched from the surface into the inspected component by absorption of modulated radiation. For energy deposition, it use external heat sources (e.g., halogen lamp or convective heating) or internal heat generation (e.g., microwaves, eddy current, or elastic wave). Among the external heat sources, the ultrasound is generally used for energy deposition because of defect selective heating up. The heat source generating a thermal wave is provided by the defect itself due to the attenuation of amplitude modulated ultrasound. A defect causes locally enhanced losses and consequently selective heating up. Therefore amplitude modulation of the injected ultrasonic wave turns a defect into a thermal wave transmitter whose signal is detected at the surface by thermal infrared camera. This way ultrasound thermography(UT) allows for selective defect detection which enhances the probability of defect detection in the presence of complicated intact structures. In this paper the applicability of UT for fast defect detection is described. Examples are presented showing the detection of defects in PCB material. Measurements were performed on various kinds of typical defects in PCB materials (both Cu metal and non-metal epoxy). The obtained thermal image reveals area of defect in row of thick epoxy material and PCB.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.41-45
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• 2006

The fabrication process of fiber placement system of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) requires real time process control and reliable inspection to ensure quality by preventing defects such as delamination and void. Therefore, novel non-contact inspection technique is required during the non-destructive evaluation in a fiber placement system. For the inspection of delamination in CFRP, various methods to receive laser-generated ultrasound were applied by using piezoelectric transducer, air-coupled transducer, wavelet transform and scanning laser ultrasonic technique. Laser-generated ultrasound was received with a conventional piezoelectric sensor in contacting manner. Then signal characteristics due to defects were analyzed to find a factor for detecting defects. Air-coupled transducer was used for reception of laser-generated guided wave using linear slit array in order to generate high frequency guided wave. And line scan technique was used to confirm the capability of on-line application. The high frequency component of laser-generated guided wave received with piezoelectric sensor disappeared after propagating through delamination region. Nevertheless, it was failed to receive high frequency guided wave in using air-coupled transducer. The first peak of the frequency spectrum under 100kHz in the delamination region is higher than in the sound region. By using this feature, the line scanned frequency data were acquired in fully non-contact generation and reception of ultrasound. This method was proved as useful technique for detecting delamination in CFRP.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.284-290
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• 2012

Infrared thermography uses infrared energy radiated from any objects above absolute zero temperature, and the range of its application has been constantly broadened. As one of the active test techniques detecting radiant energy generated when energy is applied to an object, ultrasound infrared thermography is a method of detecting defects through hot spots occurring at a defect area when 15~100 kHz of ultrasound is excited to an object. This technique is effective in detecting a wide range affected by ultrasound and vibration in real time. Especially, it is really effective when a defect area is minute. Therefore, this study conducted thermography through lock-in signal processing when an actual defect exists inside the austenite STS304 seamless pipe, which simulates thermal fatigue cracks in a nuclear power plant pipe. With ultrasound excited, this study could detect defects on the rear of a pipe by using an aluminium reflector. Besides, by regulating the angle of the aluminium reflector, this study could detect both front and rear defects as a single infrared thermography image.