• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.215-221
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• 2005

It is required to evaluate nondestructively depth of surface-breaking cracks in structures. In this paper, the self-compensated technique by laser-based ultrasound is used to measure the depth of surface-breaking defect. Optical generation of ultrasound produces a well defined pulse with reliable frequency content. It is broad banded and suitable for measurement of attenuation and scattering over a wide frequency range. The self-calibrated signal transmission data of surface wave shows good sensitivity as a practical tool far assessment of surface-breaking defect depth. It is suggested that the relationship between the signal transmission and crack depth can be used to predict the surface-breaking crack depths in structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.135-147
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• 2016

This paper describes a smart structural system, which uses smart materials for real-time monitoring and active control of bolted-joints in steel structures. The goal of this research is to reduce the possibility of failure and the cost of maintenance of steel structures such as bridges, electricity pylons, steel lattice towers and so on. The concept of the smart structural system combines impedance based health monitoring techniques with a shape memory alloy (SMA) washer to restore the tension of the loosened bolt. The impedance-based structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques were used to detect loosened bolts in bolted-joints. By comparing electrical impedance signatures measured from a potentially damage structure with baseline data obtained from the pristine structure, the bolt loosening damage could be detected. An outlier analysis, using generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution, providing optimal decision boundaries, has been carried out for more systematic damage detection. Once the loosening damage was detected in the bolted joint, the external heater, which was bonded to the SMA washer, actuated the washer. Then, the heated SMA washer expanded axially and adjusted the bolt tension to restore the lost torque. Additionally, temperature variation due to the heater was compensated by applying the effective frequency shift (EFS) algorithm to improve the performance of the diagnostic results. An experimental study was conducted by integrating the piezoelectric material based structural health monitoring and the SMA-based active control function on a bolted joint, after which the performance of the smart 'self-monitoring and self-healing bolted joint system' was demonstrated.