• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.230-234
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• 2009

As concrete ages, the surrounding environment is expected to have growing influences on the concrete. As all the impacts of the environment cannot be considered in the strength-estimating model of a nondestructive concrete test, the increase in concrete age leads to growing uncertainty in the strength-estimating model. Therefore, the variation of the model error increases. It is necessary to include those impacts in the probability model of concrete strength attained from the nondestructive tests so as to build a more accurate reliability model for structural performance evaluation. This paper reviews and categorizes the existing strength-estimating statistical models of nondestructive concrete test, and suggests a new form of the strength-estimating statistical models to properly reflect the model uncertainty due to aging of the concrete. This new form of the statistical models will lay foundation for more accurate structural performance evaluation.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10b
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• pp.1291-1296
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• 2000

A basis for the direct use of data from nondestructive evaluation methods in bridge management systems is presented. Bridge management systems use integer-valued condition ratings to recognize conditions of bridge elements, to model progression of deterioration, and to determine repair needs. Data from nondestructive evaluation methods can inform management systems on the extent of damage, on the initiation of deterioration processes, and on the exposure of bridge elements to aggressive agents. In addition, data obtained through nondestructive evaluation methods allow the formation of models of specific deterioration process. The use of these data in bridge management systems requires redefinition of condition ratings together with the creation of procedures for automated interpretation of data. By these action, nondestructive evaluation methods are directly used to assign condition ratings, and condition ratings are made into terse form of NDE data that are compatible with present day bridge management systems. This paper reports work in progress to strategic use of nondestructive evaluation methods in bridge management system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2001

It will be shown how models can simulate all the elements of an ultrasonic NDE measurement system, including the pulser/receiver, cabling, transducer(s), and the acoustic/elastic waves fields. When combined, these models form what is called the electroacoustic measurement model. It will be demonstrated how this electroacoustic measurement model can be used to conduct parametric transducer and system studies and how the model can form the basis for experimentally characterizing all the elements of the ultrasonic measurement system, using purely electrical measurements.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.627-636
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• 2002

Identification and sizing of surface breaking vertical cracks using angle beam ultrasonic testing in practical situation quite often become very difficult tasks due to the presence of non-relevant signals caused by geometric reflectors. The present work introduces effective and systematic approaches to take care of such a difficulty by use oi angle beam ultrasonic testing models that can predict the expected signals from various targets very accurately. Specifically, the model-based TIFD (Technique for Identification of Flaw signals using Deconvolution) is Proposed for the identification of the crack tip signals from the non-relevant geometric reflection signals. In addition, the model-based Size-Amplitude Curve is introduced for the reliable sizing of surface breaking vertical cracks.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.607-611
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• 2001

Ultrasonic inspection system consist of the operator, equipment and procedure. The reliability of results in ultrasonic inspection is affected by its ability. Furthermore, the reliability of nondestructive testing is influenced by the inspection environment, materials and types of defect. Therefore, it is very difficult to estimate the reliability of NDT due to the various factors. In this study, the probability of detection by logistic probability model and Monte Carlo simulation is used for the reliability assessment of ultrasonic inspection. The utility of the NDT reliability assesment is verified by the analysis of the data from round robin test nth these models.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.80-90
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• 2001

The aim of this study is to develop the methodology which enables to identify the mechanical properties of element such as stress intensity factor by using the AE parameters. Considering the multivariate and nonlinear properties of AE parameters such as ringdown count, rise time, energy, event duration and peak amplitude from fatigue cracks of machine element the principal component regression(PCR) and artificial neural network(ANN) models for the estimation of stress intensity factor were developed and validated. The AE parameters were found to be very significant to estimate the stress intensity factor. Since the statistical values including correlation coefficients, standard mr of calibration, standard error of prediction and bias were stable, the PCR and ANN models for stress intensity factor were very robust. The performance of ANN model for unknown data of stress intensity factor was better than that of PCR model.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.198-205
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• 2006

The necessity of nondestructively inspecting austenitic steels, fiber-reinforced composites, and other inherently anisotropic materials has stimulated considerable interest in developing beam models for anisotropic media. The properties of slowness surface playa key role in the beam models based on the paraxial approximation. In this paper, we apply a modular multi-Gaussian beam (MMGB) model to study the effects of material anisotropy on ultrasonic beam profile. It is shown that the anisotropic effects of beam skew and excess beam divergence enter into the MMGB model through parameters defining the slope and curvature of the slowness surface. The overall beam profile is found when the quasilongitudinal(qL) beam propagates in the symmetry plane of transversely isotropic austenitic steels. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effects of these parameters on ultrasonic beam diffraction and beam skew. The MMGB calculations are also checked by comparing the anisotropy factor and beam skew angle with other analytical solutions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.820-830
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• 2016

Pipe wall thinning by flow-accelerated corrosion and various types of erosion is a significant and costly damage phenomenon in secondary piping systems of nuclear power plants (NPPs). Most NPPs have management programs to ensure pipe integrity due to wall thinning that includes periodic measurements for pipe wall thicknesses using nondestructive evaluation techniques. Numerous measurements using ultrasonic tests (UTs; one of the nondestructive evaluation technologies) have been performed during scheduled outages in NPPs. Using the thickness measurement data, wall thinning rates of each component are determined conservatively according to several evaluation methods developed by the United States Electric Power Research Institute. However, little is known about the conservativeness or reliability of the evaluation methods because of a lack of understanding of the measurement error. In this study, quantitative models for UT thickness measurement deviations of nuclear pipes and fittings were developed as the first step for establishing an optimized thinning evaluation procedure considering measurement error. In order to understand the characteristics of UT thickness measurement errors of nuclear pipes and fittings, round robin test results, which were obtained by previous researchers under laboratory conditions, were analyzed. Then, based on a large dataset of actual plant data from four NPPs, a quantitative model for UT thickness measurement deviation is proposed for plant conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.398-408
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• 2007

For better evaluation of material thickness by using the reflection type pulsed eddy current method, various probe models are designed and their response signals, characteristics, and sensitivities to thickness variation are investigated by a numerical analysis method. Since the sensor needs to detect magnetic fields from eddy currents induced in a test material, not from the exciter coil, two types of models that are shielded by the combination of copper and ferrite and only by ferrite are considered. By studying response signals from these shielded probe models, the peak value and the zero crossing time are selected as useful signal features for the evaluation of material thickness. Investigation of sensitivities of these two features shows that the sensitivity of peak value is more useful than that of zero crossing time and that the probe shielded only by ferrite gives much better sensitivity to thickness variation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.525-548
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• 2008

This article deals the theory for solving an inverse problem of plate structures using the frequency-domain information instead of classical time-domain delays or free vibration eigenmodes or eigenvalues. A reduced set of output parameters characterizing the defect is used as a regularization technique to drastically overcome noise problems that appear in imaging techniques. A deconvolution scheme from an undamaged specimen overrides uncertainties about the input signal and other coherent noises. This approach provides the advantage that it is not necessary to visually identify the portion of the signal that contains the information about the defect. The theoretical model for Quantitative nondestructive evaluation, the relationship between the real and ideal models, the finite element method (FEM) for the forward problem, and inverse procedure for detecting the defects are developed. The theoretical formulation is experimentally verified using dynamic responses of a steel plate under impact loading at several points. The signal synthesized by FEM, the residual, and its components are analyzed for different choices of time window. The noise effects are taken into account in the inversion strategy by designing a filter for the cost functional to be minimized. The technique is focused toward a exible and rapid inspection of large areas, by recovering the position of the defect by means of a single accelerometer, overriding experimental calibration, and using a reduced number of impact events.