• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.1060-1066
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• 2007

When a high-energy ultrasound propagates through a solid body that contains a crack or a delamination, the two faces of the defect do not ordinarily vibrate in unison, and dissipative phenomena such as friction, rubbing and clapping between the faces will convert some of the vibrational energy to heat. By combining this heating effect with infrared imaging, one can detect a subsurface defect in material efficiently. In this paper a detection of the welding defect of thin SUS 304 plates using the UIR (ultrasonic infrared imaging) technology is described. A low frequency (20kHz) ultrasonic transducer was used to infuse the welded thin SUS 304 plates with a short pulse of sound for 280ms. The ultrasonic source has a maximum power of 2kW. The surface temperature of the area under inspection is imaged by a thermal infrared camera that is coupled to a fast frame grabber in a computer. The hot spots, which are a small area around the defect tip and heated up highly, are observed. From the sequence of the thermosonic images, the location of defective or inhomogeneous regions in the welded thin SUS 304 plates can be detected easily.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.28 no.B
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• pp.129-133
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• 2008

A method to reduce seam line artifact in spatial compounding of ultrasonic images is presented. Spatial compounding is a speckle reducing imaging technique in which a number of ultrasound images of a given target that have been obtained from multiple view angles are combined into a single compounded image by combining the data received from each data point in the compounded image. Since different view angle results in different view area, and the images of different view arms are combined into an image, the compounded image consists of regions with different signal to noise ratio, and the boundary lines between these regions are visible as seam lines in the compounded images. In this paper, we present an algorithm that reduces the visibility of this seam line in the spatially compounded images. Design procedure for a FIH filter is described and the results of applying the filter to in-vivo ultrasonic images are analyzed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.556-559
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• 2008

In this study, an automated ultrasonic testing system and post signal and image processing techniques are developed in order to construct ultrasonic flaw images in weldments. The automated ultrasonic testing system developed in the present study adopted an 8 channel pulser/receiver-ADC unit and a 2 axis motion driving unit and the post signal and image processing algorithms are built into the system program of the automated ultrasonic testing system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.16 no.10 s.115
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• pp.1057-1066
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• 2006

Acoustic streaming Induced by longitudinal vibration at 30 kHz is visualized for a test fluid flow between the stationary glass plate and ultrasonic vibrating surface with particle imaging velocimetry (PIV) To measure an increase in the velocity of air flow due to acoustic streaming, the velocity of air flow in a gap between the heat source and ultrasonic vibrator is obtained quantitatively using PIV. The ultrasonic wave propagating into air in the gap generates steady-state secondary vortex called acoustic streaming which enhances convective cooling of the stationary heat source. Heat transfer through air in the gap is represented by experimental convective heat transfer coefficient with respect to the gap. Theoretical analysis shows that gaps for maximum heat transfer enhancement are the multiple of half wavelength. Optimal gaps for the actual design are experimentally found to be half wavelength and one wavelength. A drastic temperature variation exists for the local axial direction of the vibrator according to the measurement of the temperature distribution in the gap. The acoustic streaming velocity of the test fluid in the gap is at maximum when the gap agrees with the multiples of half wavelength of the ultrasonic wave, which are specifically 6 mm and 12 mm.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.31-43
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• 2016

Applications of ultrasonic tomography to concrete structures have been reported for many years. However, practical and effective application of this tool for nondestructive assessment of internal concrete condition is hampered by time consuming transducer coupling that limits the amount of ultrasonic data that can be collected. This research aims to deploy recent developments in air-coupled ultrasonic measurements of solids, described in Part 1 of this paper set, to concrete in order to image internal inclusions. Ultrasonic signals are collected from concrete samples using a fully air-coupled (contactless) test configuration. These air coupled data are compared to those collected using partial semi-contact and full-contact test configurations. Two samples are considered: a 150 mm diameter cylinder with an internal circular void and a prism with $300mm{\times}300mm$ square cross-section that contains internal damaged regions and embedded reinforcement. The heterogeneous nature of concrete material structure complicates the application and interpretation of ultrasonic measurements and imaging. Volumetric inclusions within the concrete specimens are identified in the constructed velocity tomograms, but wave scattering at internal interfaces of the concrete disrupts the images. This disruption reduces defect detection accuracy as compared with tomograms built up of data collected from homogeneous solid samples (PVC) that are described in Part 1 of this paper set. Semi-contact measurements provide some improvement in accuracy through higher signal-to-noise ratio while still allowing for reasonably rapid data collection.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1990 no.05
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• pp.29-32
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• 1990

In this paper, we designed and fabricated linear array transducer for ultrasonic medical imaging system. Fabricated transducer is 85mm in length and has 64 elements. It shows good sensitivity and band width characteristics compared with commercial transducers.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.117-124
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• 2006

Recently, active research has been going on to measure the elastic modulus of human soft tissue with medical ultrasound imaging systems for the purpose of diagnosing cancers or tumors which have been difficult to detect with conventional B-mode imaging techniques. In this paper, a real-time ultrasonic elasticity imaging system is implemented in software on a Pentium processor-based ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system. Soft tissue is subjected to external vibration, and the resulting tissue displacements change the phase of received echoes, which is in turn used to estimate tissue elasticity. It was confirmed from experiment with a phantom that the implemented elasticity imaging system could differentiate between soft and hard regions, where the latter is twice harder than the former, while operating at an adequate frame rate of 20 frames/s.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.361-367
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• 2024

Ultrasound in the air is widely used in industry as a measurement technique to prevent abnormalities in the machinery. Recently, the use of airborne ultrasound imaging techniques, which can find the location of abnormalities using an array transducers, is increasing. A beamforming method that uses the phase difference for each sensor is used to visualize the location of the ultrasonic sound source. We exploit a random sparse ultrasonic array and obtain beamforming power distribution on the source in a certain distance away from the array. Conventional beamforming methods inevitably have limited spatial resolution depending on the number of sensors used and the aperture size. A high-resolution ultrasound imaging technique was implemented by applying functional beamforming as a method to overcome the geometric constraints of the array. The functional beamforming method can be expressed as a generalized beam forming method mathematically, and has the advantage of being able to obtain high-resolution imaging by reducing main-lobe width and side lobes. As a result of observation through computer simulation, it was verified that the resolution of the ultrasonic source in the air was successfully increased by functional beamforming using the ultrasonic sparse array.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.51-65
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is the development and application of a high resolution ultrasonic wave imaging system to detect discontinuity plane in lab-scale rock models. This technique is based on received time series which capture the multiple reflections at interface. This study includes the fundamental aspects of ultrasonic wave propagation in rock mass, the selection of the optimal ultrasonic wave transducer, data gathering, a signal processing, imaging methods, and experiments. Experiments are carried out by the horizontal movement and rotation devices. Experimental studies show the discontinuity is well detected by the horizontal movement and rotation devices under water. Furthermore, the discontinuity and the cavity on the plaster block are identified by the rotation device. This study suggests that the new method may be an economical and effective tool for the detection of the discontinuity on rock mass.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.227-232
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• 1990

As a part of the study on ultrasonic tissue characterization, conventional ultrasonic imaging system is interfaced to the personal computer to acquire raw ultrasonic signal. One approach for tissue charaterization is performed using the attenuation map to the conventional images and the resulting attenuation map images are compared and inspected inside the region of interest from the viewpoint of pattern analysis. Currently, these methods are applied and modified to effectively find out the differences between the normal control and the patients with liver cirrhosis.