• 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.

• 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 Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.174-178
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• 2015

This paper describes a signal processing technique for identifying signals from defects by using an electromagnetic-ultrasonic guided waves method based on a magnetostrictive sensor that generates a torsional mode (T(0, 1)). Because this technique is based on the digital filtering, the filtered signals provide information on the relationship between the cutoff frequency of band-pass filter and the characteristic of defect signals in heat exchange tubes. To verify the performance of the technique, artificial defects with various thickness reduction ration and shape were machined in titanium tubes, and digital filtering results are reported. The results show that digital filtering provides information to the identify shape of defects and the contact condition between the tube and support ring. Therefore, the proposed technique has good potential as a tool for evaluating the integrity of heat exchange tubes.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.416-420
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• 2008

In EMAT field, spiral RF coils are much more widely used when compared with solenoid coils. In the field of the magnetostrictive strip transducers for long range ultrasonic testing of cylindrical structures, however, solenoid coils has been used. This seems to be attributed to the difficulty in fabricating low frequency (i.e., large size) spiral coils. In this paper, we describe a method for fabricating spiral coil magnetostrictive strip guided wave transducers from FFC (flexible flat cable). It is demonstrated through a comparison experiment that the spiral coil transducer has much superior performance (sensitivity, SNR, and guided wave direction control capability) than the previous transducer with solenoid coils.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.56-62
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• 2011

In the present study, the phase velocities of guided ultrasonic waves such as the first arriving signal (FAS) and the slow guided wave (SGW) propagating along the long axis on the 12 tubular cortical bone samples in vitro were measured and their correlations with the cortical thickness were investigated. The phase velocities of the FAS and the SGW were measured by using the axial transmission method in air with a pair of unfocused ultrasonic transducers with a diameter of 12.7 mm and a center frequency of 200 kHz. The phase velocity of the FAS measured at 200 kHz exhibited a very high negative correlation with the cortical thickness and that of the SGW arriving after the FAS showed a high positive correlation with the cortical thickness. The simple and multiple linear regression models with the phase velocities of the FAS and the SGW as independent variables and the cortical thickness as a dependent variable revealed that the coefficient of determination of the multiple linear regression model was higher than those of the simple linear regression models. The phase velocities of the FAS and the SGW measured at 200 kHz on the 12 tubular cortical bone samples were, respectively, consistent with those of the S0 and the A0 Lamb modes calculated at 200 kHz on the cortical bone plate.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.341-347
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• 2004

In order to inspect the piping effectively, one of the important components in the facility of power plants, the ultrasonic guided wave was generated by a tomb transducer and was received in a non-contact fashion by using an air-coupled transducer. The guided wave modes that ran be generated by the comb transducer in piping are predicted from the theoretical dispersion curves and the element spacing of a comb transducer. Moreover, to receive the specific modes, the receiving angle of the air-coupled transducer is calculated from Snell's law between the phase velocities of guided waves and the sound velocity of air. The guided wave modes obtained in experiments are identified from the result of time-frequency analysis such as wavelet transform and two-dimensional fast Fourier transform.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.458-465
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• 2009

In general, ultrasonic guided wave techniques that used for an evaluation of the internal defect have been applied without considering energy loss. It can be found out that the significant attenuation is observed in the signal of structure with defect by the scattering and absorption. Even in the signal acquired from defect-free structure, this attenuation can be also significant. Therefore, it is very essential to determine the Lamb wave propagation characteristics depending on modes because the dispersibility of Lamb wave can be easily influenced by the attenuation effect with frequency and thickness. For this reason, changing the propagation distance, attenuation coefficient of each Lamb wave mode needs to be investigated by the contact pitch-catch method with PZT(piezoelectric) sensors. In this paper, the experimental attenuation coefficient is measured by choosing the following three different variables; mode, thickness and plate materials. As a result, experimental attenuation coefficient is obtained as the function of variables.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2012

As the development of MEMS/NEMS structure and application technology the demand for an assessment of the mechanical properties have increased. The mechanical properties are mainly evaluated by using tensile test or ultrasonic wave measurement. However, the new technology have been developed such as nano-indentation, guided wave method because they have a limitation in case of a thin plate and thin film. In the study, the guided wave velocities are measured by electromagnetic-acoustic transducer(EMAT), the material properties of thin metallic foils are obtained using optimization process of the theoretical and experimental group velocity of guided wave. The Young's modulus obtained by the optimization process(201.6 GPa), nano-indentation(207.0 GPa) and literature value(203.7 GPa) of a $50{\mu}m$ thick nickel thin plate shows good agreement within 3%.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.353-361
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• 2004

Propagation of the guided waves in a steam generator (SG) tube was investigated. Dispersion curves and the incident angles corresponding to the specific modes were calculated for the SG tube. The modes of guided wave were identified by time-frequency diagrams obtained by short time Fourier transform. Group velocities were also determined from the time-frequency diagrams obtained at the different separations of transducers. In experiment. distinct mode conversion was not observed when the guided ultrasound passed curved region of the S/G tube. The optimum mode of guided wave for the inspection of SG tube was suggested and verified by experiments.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.349-362
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• 2010

Ultrasonic Guided Waves (UGWs) are a useful tool in structural health monitoring (SHM) applications that can benefit from built-in transduction, moderately large inspection ranges and high sensitivity to small flaws. This paper describes a SHM method based on UGWs, discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and principal component analysis (PCA) able to detect and quantify the onset and propagation of fatigue cracks in structural waveguides. The method combines the advantages of guided wave signals processed through the DWT with the outcomes of selecting defect-sensitive features to perform a multivariate diagnosis of damage. This diagnosis is based on the PCA. The framework presented in this paper is applied to the detection of fatigue cracks in a steel beam. The probing hardware consists of a PXI platform that controls the generation and measurement of the ultrasonic signals by means of piezoelectric transducers made of Lead Zirconate Titanate. Although the approach is demonstrated in a beam test, it is argued that the proposed method is general and applicable to any structure that can sustain the propagation of UGWs.