• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.36-41
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• 2013

Previous study showed that delamination region in concrete structures can be successfully visualized using mode shapes of delaminated concrete section. However, modal tests for this purpose to obtain mode shapes of the delaminated concrete section may not be applicable in practice since, to correctly obtain the mode shapes of the section, the location and the shape of the delamination region in a structure should be known in advance. Unfortunately those are normally unknown in a real structure. Therefore, a moving forward test method may be useful to obtain the mode shapes of the concrete section when the location and the shape of the delamination region are not known. In this study, impact-echo testing based mode shape estimation technique is proposed and experimentally validated for visualization of delamination region.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.659-666
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• 2015

In this paper, various influence factors on the impact-echo test which is an effective method in characterizing defects such as such as the delamination in the concrete structures were studied. The side to thickness ratio(a/h), the relative position of impacting and sensing points over the delamination that have great effects on the flexural and impact-echo(thickness) modes were investigated and examined by the parametric finite element analysis. As a result, the flexural modes dominate in the case of a/h > 2 and the thickness mode was more evident when a/h < 2. With regard to the relative position of impact source and sensing point to the defect, the flexural modes dominate even when either the loading or sensing point was over the delamination defect. However, the thickness mode prevails when both the impacting and sensing points are over the solid region beyond the delamination area.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.257-262
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• 2017

This study aims to develop a signal processing scheme to accurately predict the thickness of concrete slab using air-coupled impact-echo. Air-coupled impact-echo has been applied to concrete non-destructive tests (NDT); however, it is often difficult to obtain thickness mode frequency due to noise components. Furthermore, apparent velocity in concrete is a usually unknown parameter in the field and the thickness of the concrete slab often cannot be accurately measured. This study proposes a signal processing scheme using guided wave analysis, wherein dispersion curves are drawn in both frequency-wave number (f-k) and phase velocity-frequency ($V_{cp}-f$) domains. The theoretical and experimental results demonstrate that thickness mode frequency and apparent velocity in concrete are clearly obtained from the f-k and $V_{cp}-f$ domains, respectively. The proposed method has great potential with regard to the application of air-coupled impact-echo in the field.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.59-72
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• 2016

The Impact Echo method can be used to measure the thickness of concrete plate like structures. Measurements are based on the identification of a clear thickness resonance frequency which can be difficult in very thick or highly attenuative plates. In this study the detectability of the measured resonant frequency is enhanced by time domain summation of signals with different source receiver spacing. The proposed method is based on the spatial and temporal properties of the first higher symmetric zero group velocity Lamb mode (S1-ZGV) which are described in detail. No application dependent tuning or filtering is needed which makes the method robust and suitable for implementation in automatic IE thickness measurements. The proposed technique is exemplified with numerical data and field data from a thick concrete wall and a highly attenuative asphalt concrete layer.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.21-26
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• 2013

Delamination of cover concrete due to re-bar corrosion is a critical damage reducing structural safety of reinforced concrete structures. Therefore, it should be detected and evaluated to provide appropriate maintenance to recover structural integrity. Impact-echo method, which utilizes thickness vibration characteristics of delaminated concrete section, is effective for detection and evaluation of small areal size delamination. However, it may not be applicable for large areal size delamination in which flexural vibration modes are dominated. In this study, applicability of vibration mode shapes of delaminated concrete section is investigated for visualization of delamination region in concrete structures. Numerical and experimental modal tests are performed to estimate mode shapes of delaminated concrete section and linear absolute summation technique is proposed for effective visualization of delamination region based on estimated mode shapes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2011

It is well known that stiffness of composites depends on layup sequence of CFRP(carbon fiber reinforced plastics) laminates because the layup of composite laminates influences their properties. Ultrasonic NDE of composite laminates is often based on the backwall echoes of the sample. A pair of such transducers was mounted in a holder in a nose-to-nose fashion to be used as a scanning probe on composites. Miniature potted angle beam transducers were used (Rayleigh waves in steel) on solid laminates of composites. Experiments were performed to understand the behavior of the transducers and the nature of the waves generated in the composite (mode, wave speed, angle of refraction). C-scan images of flaws and impact damage were then produced by combining the pitch-catch probe with a portable manual scanner known as the Generic Scanner ("GenScan"). The pitch-catch signal was found to be more sensitive than normal incidence backwall echo of longitudinal wave to fiber orientation of the CFRP composites, including low level porosity, ply waviness, and cracks. Therefore, it is found that the experimentally Rayleigh wave variation of pitch-catch ultrasonic signal was consistent with numerical results and one-side ultrasonic measurement might be very useful to detect the defects.