• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2015

Wind power systems have gained much attention due to the relatively high reliability, good infrastructures and cost competitiveness to the fossil fuels. Advances have been made to increase the power efficiency of wind turbines while less attention has been focused on structural integrity assessment of structural sub-systems such as towers and foundations. Among many parameters for integrity assessment, the most perceptive parameter may be the induced horizontal displacement at the hub height although it is very difficult to measure particularly in large-scale and high-rise wind turbine structures. This study proposes an indirect displacement estimation scheme based on the combined use of inclinometers and accelerometers for more convenient and cost-effective measurements. To this end, (1) the formulation for data fusion of inclination and acceleration responses was presented and (2) the proposed method was numerically validated on an NREL 5 MW wind turbine model. The numerical analysis was carried out to investigate the performance of the propose method according to the number of sensors, the resolution and the available sampling rate of the inclinometers to be used.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.308-315
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• 2009

Because the attenuation of AE signal in composite materials is relatively higher than that of metallic materials, it is required to develop a damage assessment technique less affected by the attenuation property of composite materials in order to use AE sensing as a damage detection method. In the signal processing procedure, it is profitable to use the leading wave that arrives first because the leading wave is less influenced by the boundary conditions. Using wavelet transform, we investigated the frequency characteristics of impact induced AE signals focused on the leading wave in advance and chose the key factors to discriminate the damaged condition quantitatively. In this research, we established a damage assessment technique using the sharing percentage of the wavelet detail components of AE signal, and conducted a low-velocity impact test on composite laminates to confirm the feasibility of the proposed signal processing method.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.138-149
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• 2014

This study proposes an estimation method of strain distribution for multi-span steel beam structure under unspecific loading conditions. The estimation method in this paper employs the curve fitting using the least square method from measured strain data, not analytical method. To verify the proposed estimation method, a static loading test for multi-span steel beam on which distributed and concentrated loads act was conducted. The strain data for verification was measured by FBG sensors that have multiplexing technology. The analysis of the accuracy of strain estimation for distributed and concentrated loads and the errors by considering the number of measured points used in the estimation were conducted. In the maximum strain points, the strains could be estimated with the errors of 5.89% (loading step 1) and 6.26% (loading step 2). In case of decreasing the number of sensors, it was also confirmed that the errors increased (0.26~0.37%). Through the curve fitting method, it is possible to estimate the strain distribution (maximum strains and their locations) of multi-span beam for unspecific loads and go over the limit of the analytical estimation method which is suitable for specific distributed loads.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.541-547
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• 2017

Climate change has become the main cause of the exacerbation in natural disasters. Social Overhead Capital(SOC) structure needs to be checked for displacement and crack periodically to prevent damage and the collapse caused by natural disaster and ensure the safety. For efficient structure maintenance, the optical image technology is applied to the Structure Health Monitoring(SHM). However, optical image is sensitive to environmental factors. So it is necessary to verify its validity. In this paper, the accuracy of estimating the vertical displacement was verified with respect to environmental condition such as natural light, measurement distance, and the number of image sheets. The result of experiments showed that the effect of natural light on accuracy of estimating vertical displacement was the greatest of all. The measurement angle which was affected by the change in measurement distance was also important to check the vertical displacement. These findings will be taken into account by applying appropriate environmental condition to minimize errors when the bridge was measured by camera. It will also enable the application of optical images to the SHM.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.317-325
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• 2020

The development of a technique that can monitor the cracks, which is one of the typical types of damage, is necessary to secure the structural safety of elastically restrained cantilever-type beams with a tip mass that is used widely in infrastructure. Impedance techniques have been actively researched to detect cracks, and the cracks were estimated mainly by experimentally investigating the relationship between the crack and impedance signal. This study examined the correlation between the change in the impedance signals due to the crack, and the natural frequency obtained analytically. After updating the analysis model for the intact beam, the impedance signal was measured while gradually inflicting cracks in the cantilever-type beam, and the damage index was obtained. The results were compared with the natural frequencies calculated from the updated analysis model to investigate the correlation. A close correlation was observed between the experimentally obtained impedance damage index, and the analytically calculated natural frequency. Using this correlation, the structural characteristics could be evaluated more accurately from the damage estimation results, and the behavior of the structure could be predicted effectively using the analysis model.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.188-196
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• 2012

Dynamic parameters such as natural frequencies can provide global stiffness information of a structure, and thus be utilized in monitoring structural integrity of large structures such as a containment. To identify the dynamic parameters without interrupting normal operation, a modal analysis method based on ambient vibration measurements should be applied. In this study, dynamic parameters of the containment of Wolsong Unit 2 are identified using ambient vibration measurement data. The feasibility of the study is verified using a numerical model for the containment. From the modal analysis, dynamic parameters of the containment with acceptable correlation to analytical modes can be estimated.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.351-358
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• 2015

This paper presents an effective damage detection method using a meta model. A meta model is an approximation model that uses the relations between the design and response variables. It eliminates the need for repetitive analyses of computationally expensive models during the optimization process. In this study, a response surface model was employed as the meta model. The surface model was estimated using the correlation of the stiffness and natural frequencies of the structures. The locations and values of the damages were identified using a meta model-based damage detection method. Two numerical examples (a cantilever beam and jacket structure) were considered to verify the performance of the proposed method. As a result, the damages to the structures were accurately detected.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.550-557
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• 2008

Delamination damage at a bolt hole in a composite stiffened panel was detected using a built-in piezoelectric active sensor array. Various signal processing techniques were used to detect an invisible small scale delamination around a fastener hole due to localized transverse loading. A built-in piezoelectric sensor array was used to generate diagnostic signals and to measure response signals. Then, the response signals were processed to extract damage-sensitive features. Damage indexes were calculated to estimate the severity and location of the damage from the features.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.799-804
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• 2013

The sensor/actuator active sensor diagnostics procedure, where the sensors/actuators are confirmed to be functioning properly during operation, is a critical component to successfully complete the structural health monitoring (SHM) process with large numbers of active sensors typically installed in a structure. The basis of this process is to track the changes in the capacitive value of piezoelectric materials, which shows up in measured admittance. Due to the temperature dependent nature of piezoelectric materials, we investigated the effects of temperature variations on sensor diagnostic process. The effect of temperature variations found to be remarkable, modifying the measured capacitive values significantly. In addition we analyzed the effect of bonding agents between a PZT patch and a host structure. This paper summarizes considerations needed to develop such sensor diagnostic processes, experimental procedures and results, and additional issues that can be used as guidelines for future investigations.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.4A
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• pp.605-609
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• 2006

In this study, two kinds of smart accelerometers are investigated for the application of smart sensors to the structural health monitoring of infrastructures. Smart optical Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) type and Micro-Electo-Mechanical System (MEMS) type accelerometers are selected for this study and the high sensitive ICP type accelerometer is used for the reference sensor. Small size shaking table tests were performed with 3-story shear building model using random input ground motions. The output only modal identification was carried out using stochastic subspace identification and the performances of sensors are compared in modal domain indirectly. The modal sensitivity method was applied to update the story stiffness of numerical model and the updated results were verified using the additional experiments for the same structure with additional mass.