• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.7
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• pp.851-866
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• 2010

This paper presents a new concept of using PZT (lead zircornate titanate) transducers as a non-destructive testing (NDT) tool for evaluating quality of concrete. Detection of defects in concrete is very important in order to check the integrity of concrete structures. The electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) response of PZT transducers bonded onto a concrete specimen can be used for evaluating local condition of the specimen. Measurements are carried out by electrically exciting the bonded PZT transducers at high frequency range and taking response measurements of the transducers. In this study, the compression test results showed that concrete specimens without sufficient compaction are likely to fall below the desired strength. In addition, the strength of concrete was greatly reduced as the voids in concrete were increased. It was found that the root mean square deviation (RMSD) values yielded between the EMI signatures for concrete specimens in dry and saturated states showed good agreement with the specimens' compressive strength and permeable voids. A quality metric was introduced for predicting the quality of concrete based on the dry-saturated state of concrete specimens. The simplicity of the method and the current development towards low cost and portable impedance measuring system, offer an advantage over other NDE methods for evaluating concrete quality.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.503-514
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• 2015

Fibre-added concretes are frequently used in large site applications such as slab and airports as well as in bearing system elements or prefabricated elements. It is very difficult to determine the mechanical properties of the fibre-added concretes by experimental methods in situ. The purpose of this study is to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) model in order to predict the compressive and bending strengths of hybrid fibre-added and non-added concretes. The strengths have been predicted by means of the data that has been obtained from destructive (DT) and non-destructive tests (NDT) on the samples. NDTs are ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and Rebound Hammer Tests (RH). 105 pieces of cylinder samples with a dimension of $150{\times}300mm$, 105 pieces of bending samples with a dimension of $100{\times}100{\times}400mm$ have been manufactured. The first set has been manufactured without fibre addition, the second set with the addition of %0.5 polypropylene and %0.5 steel fibre in terms of volume, and the third set with the addition of %0.5 polypropylene, %1 steel fibre. The water/cement (w/c) ratio of samples parametrically varies between 0.3-0.9. The experimentally measured compressive and bending strengths have been compared with predicted results by use of ANN method.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1753-1761
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• 2014

Due to the inherent inhomogeneous and anisotropy nature of the composite materials, the detection of internal defects in these materials with non-destructive techniques is an important requirement both for quality checks during the production phase and in service inspection during maintenance operations. The estimation of the time-of-arrival (TOA) and/or time-of-flight (TOF) of the ultrasonic echoes is essential in ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT). In this paper, we used split-spectrum processing (SSP) combined with matching pursuit signal decomposition (MPSD) to develop a dedicated ultrasonic detection system. SSP algorithm is used for Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) enhancement, and the MPSD algorithm is used to decompose backscattered signals into a linear expansion of chirplet echoes and estimate the chirplet parameters. Therefore, the combination of SSP and MPSD (SSP-MPSD) presents a powerful technique for ultrasonic NDT. The SSP algorithm is achieved by using Gaussian band pass filters. Then, MPSD algorithm uses the Maximum Likelihood Estimation. The good performance of the proposed method is experimentally verified using ultrasonic traces acquired from three specimens of carbon fibre reinforced polymer multi-layered composite materials (CFRP).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.11
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• pp.4002-4018
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• 2023

An integrated neutron interrogation system has been developed for non-destructive assay of highly-radioactive special nuclear materials, to accumulate knowledge of the method through developing and using it. The system combines a differential die-away (DDA) measurement system for the quantification of nuclear materials and a prompt gamma-ray analysis (PGA) system for the detection of neutron poisons which disturb the DDA measurements; a common D-T neutron generator is used. A special care has been taken for the selection of materials to reduce the background gamma rays produced by the interrogation neutrons. A series of measurements were performed to test the basic performance of the system. The results show that the DDA system can quantify plutonium of as small as 20 mg and it is not affected by intense neutron background up to 1.57 × 10⁷ s^-1 and gamma ray of 4.43 × 10¹⁰ s^-1. The gamma-ray background counting rate at the PGA detector was reduced down to 3.9 × 10³ s^-1 even with the use of the D-T neutron generator. The test measurements show that the PGA system is capable of detecting 0.783 g of boron and about 86.8 g of gadolinium in 30 min.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.5-14
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• 2001

The NDT(Non-Destructive Testing) technique, detecting defects without damaging foundations, has, lately, been a matter of concern. In this study, the applicability of the borehole methods(CSL, CT, PS) and the surface reflection methods(SE, IR) to the evaluation of integrity of drilled shaft was investigated through field test. Ten drilled shafts, 0.4 m in diameter and 7.0 m long each, were constructed, one shaft with no defect and nine shafts intentionally with the combination of the common defects such as soft bottom, necking, bulging, cave-in, and/or weak concrete. Analysing each NDP test result on the constructed drilled shafts, an optimum combination of the NDP methods as well as the applicability of each NDP method to detecting defects of drilled shaft have been investigated.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.58-68
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• 2003

Capacity assessment of structural member must be ahead of the safety assessment of wooden traditional building. Capacity assessment of structural member has been dependent on empirical method with visual inspection even now. Safety assessment of building, however, can be more correct and reasonable provided non-destructive evaluation technique that scientific and logic would be used to evaluate the capacity of structural member. For that purpose, non-destructive evaluation technique was applied to column among many structural members of wooden traditional building to examine the possibility of capacity assessment of structural member. And then, those data will be used as a basic data for capacity assessment of structural member in a following study. Specially, deterioration progress levels of column according to exposed condition were measured. Similar results were obtained as compared with results of visual inspection, so there was a good possibility of application for non-destructive evaluation technique.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.929-933
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• 2003

Internal defects of thin pressure vessel used in the power plants or the chemical plants may be created and grow due to corrosion or creep fatigue to reduce the strength and cause critical failure during operation. Therefore it is very important to detect this defect at the early stage. For this purpose, non-destructive, non-contact and highly sensitive method should be considered for on-line application. In this paper, a laser shearographic interferometer is applied to inspect circular defects and notch defects existed inside of thin pressure vessel under the presence of pressure up to 3 times of atmospheric pressure. The influences of the defect shape and size as well as the internal pressure to the characteristic pattern in the shearography fringe are investigated, and the quantitative evaluation of the defect size is tried. Also the experimental results are compared with the destructive test results to show the applicability of this method to the quantitative evaluation of internal defects in the thin pressure vessel.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and information Science
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.59-65
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• 1997

In this paper, a general fuzzy syntactic method for recognition of flaw patterns and for the measurement of flaw characteristic parameters for a non-destructive inspections signal, called eddy-current, is presented. Solutions are given to the subtasks of primitive pattern selection, signal to symbol transformation, pattern grammar formulation, and event-synchronous flaw pattern extraction based on the grammars. Fuzzy attribute grammars are used as the model for the pattern grammar because of their descriptive power in the face of uncertain constraints caused by nose or distortion in the signal waveform, due to their ability to handle syntactic as well as semantic information. This approach has been implemented and the performance of eh resultant system has been evaluated using a library of law patterns obtained from steam generator tubes in nuclear power plants by an eddy current-based non-destructive inspection method.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.1097-1102
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• 2005

Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) is test method which finds the mechanical or natural or artificial defects of the interior or exterior of those without destructing materials and welded products. NDT is a means to assess the perfection of a component or system perfection. NOT images defects using scattered light, sound, electric current, magnetic fields and X-ray. Each NDT method has merits and demerits in the detecting ability of defects according to evaluated subjects. Defects can affect the serviceability of the material or structure, so NDT is important in guaranteeing safe operation as well as in quality control. In this review, we considered the methods of NDT applied to current railway vehicle manufacturing.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.63-70
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• 2017

As the Non Destructive Test (NDT) for the welded structure, PT(Penetration Test). MT(Magnetic Test), RT (Radioisotope Test) and UT(Ultrasonic Test) methods are widely used in practice. These NDT methods have been developed toward high efficiency, low cost, real time, and high precise new NDT. For example, RT methods are developed to CT(Computed Tomography)and DR(Digital Radiography), and UT metheds are developed into Phased array, Guide wave, TOFD method. Moreover, the Infrared thermography and Laser ultrasonic technique are newly developed for applying in high temperature objects as the non-contact NDT methods. In this review paper the new high efficiency NDT methods for the welded structure are introduced and the trend of NDT rules applying in welded structure are described.