• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.67-74
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• 2021

Domestically, technical condition evaluation for breakwaters has been conducted through safety checks and safety diagnosis. If necessary, maintenance for the facility is conducted. However, in recent years, the need for infrastructure management has been increasing from a life-cycle-cost perspective. For these reasons, the "Sustainable Infrastructure Management Basic Act" was enacted. Previously, only the technical part of the breakwaters was evaluated. However, based on the act, comprehensive management of breakwaters will be possible through performance improvement by adding economic and political evaluations. In this study, evaluation factors and evaluation methods were developed for a breakwater rehabilitation project. The purpose of this study is to present a development direction, items, and methods for the evaluation of breakwater performance improvement to be applied in future practice. This study reviews the concept of maintenance and performance improvement, the literature related to performance improvement, and the project type for the common standard of performance improvement. Evaluation items and evaluation methods for breakwater rehabilitation are suggested to be reviewed by experts. The methodology suggested in this study could be used for preventive maintenance and to reduce accidents.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.175-181
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• 2022

The condition of infrastructure deteriorates as the service life increases. Since most infrastructure in South Korea were intensively built during the period of economic growth, the proportion of outdated infrastructure is rapidly increasing now. Aging of such infrastructure can lead to safety accidents and even human casualties. To prevent these issues in advance, periodic and accurate inspection is essential. For this reason, the need for research to detect various types of damage using computer vision and deep learning is increasingly required in the field of remotely controlled or autonomous inspection. To this end, this study proposed a neural network structure that can detect concrete damage by classifying it into three types. In particular, the proposed neural network can detect them more accurately through a hierarchical learning technique. This neural network was trained with 2,026 damage images and tested with 508 damage images. As a result, we completed an algorithm with average mean intersection over union of 67.04% and F1 score of 52.65%. It is expected that the proposed damage detection algorithm could apply to accurate facility condition diagnosis in the near future.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2023

As the demand for bone mineral density testing increases in Korea, which is close to an aging society, it is necessary to evaluate the repeatability of equipment such as femur phantom other than l-spine for more accurate diagnosis. However, in clinical practice, it is often not possible to proceed such evaluation due to insufficient quality control conditions. Therefore, this study is to evaluate the usefulness of the femur phantom after fabricating the same using 3D printing technology. The femur phantom was output using GlowFill filament and FDM 3D printing type. Each phantom was repeatedly scaned 20 times to compare whether the existing l-spine phantom and the fabricated femur phantom were suitable as a phantom for quality control. Each time the seven researchers took three times, the location of the femur phantom was readjusted, and then scanned to confirm the error between the researchers. As a result of conducting repeatability evaluation using femur phantom, the coefficient of variation rate was 2%, which was within the minimum precision tolerance of 2.5%. The reproducibility between the researcher was also found to be suitable as the average coefficient of variation was 0.031 and the coefficient of variation rate was 3.1%, which was within the minimum precision error range of 5%. In conclusion, it is considered that the prospective attitude and usefulness of the femur phantom fabricated by 3D printing in clinical practice will be sufficient.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.320-329
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• 2023

Background: Oral frailty has garnered considerable interest following its identification as a risk factor for physical frailty. The Korean oral frailty diagnosis criteria have emphasized the need for extensive research on oral frailty diagnostic items and interventions. Our study performed an in-depth analysis of the tongue-palate pressure patterns in healthy community-dwelling older adults. Methods: Of the 217 older adults aged ≥60 years who visited a senior center in Wonju, 205 participants who completed tongue pressure measurement were included in the final analysis. Pressure changes over time were recorded by instructing the participants to press their tongue against the hard palate with for 7 seconds per cycle. The participants were divided into the normal and abnormal tongue pressure (NTP and ATP, respectively) groups based on whether they achieved the target tongue pressure at least once; tongue pressure patterns were compared between the groups. Furthermore, the average time taken to achieve the standard tongue pressure value was calculated for the participants in the NTP group and used to evaluate the decrease in tongue pressure in the ATP group. Results: Among the 205 participants, 40.5% had ATP. The tongue pressure graph revealed a gentle and consistent incline that was maintained even after achieving standard tongue pressure in the NTP group. The graph was more extreme in the ATP group, and the changes in the pressure type varied across individuals; the tongue pressure was only 48.4%, 40.7%, 31.9%, and 22.6% of the NTP in the participants in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and ≥90s, respectively (p<0.05). Conclusion: Tongue pressure weakness was observed in 40.5% of the healthy community-dwelling older adults. Furthermore, ATP graphs were observed in the patients with tongue pressure weakness. Thus, activities improving the oral function in community-dwelling older adults and systematic oral rehabilitation programs should be devised to promote normal swallowing.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.559-564
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• 2023

It is known that change in the bone strength of cortical bone constituting the outer shell of long bones such as the tibia or radius due to aging and osteoporosis is a risk factor for fracture. In this study, the group velocity of time-reversed Lamb waves generated in tibial cortical bone in vivo was measured using a time reversal method, and the correlations of the group velocity with the cortical bone thickness (cTh) and cortical bone mineral density (cBMD) closely related to the bone strength were investigated. It was found that the group velocity of time-reversed Lamb waves measured in the right tibia of 7 subjects showed a very high correlation, r = 0.90 (p < 0.0001), with the cTh and a relatively low correlation, r = 0.69 (p < 0.0001), with the cBMD. A limitation of this in vivo study is that the group velocity of time-reversed Lamb waves was measured for a normal group consisting of only 7 healthy adults. In the future, if the clinical usefulness of the time-reversed Lamb wave is demonstrated by follow-up studies on normal and osteoporotic groups consisting of a large number of healthy adults and osteoporotic patients, respectively, it is expected to improve the reliability of quantitative ultrasound technology for osteoporosis diagnosis. In addition, it is necessary to expand the skeletal site for measuring the group velocity of time-reversed Lamb waves not only to the tibia but also to the femur or radius.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.30-38
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• 2023

As the number of old buildings subject to safety inspection increases, the burden on designated institutions and management entities that are responsible for safety management is increasing. Accordingly, when selecting buildings subject to safety inspection, appropriate safety inspection standards and appropriate technology are essential. The current safety inspection standards for old buildings give low scores when it is difficult to confirm damage such as cracks in structural members due to finishing materials. This causes the evaluation results to be underestimated regardless of the actual safety status of the structure, resulting in an increase in the number of aging buildings subject to safety inspection. Accordingly, this study proposed a thermal imaging technique, a non-destructive and non-contact inspection, to detect cracks inside finishing materials. A concrete specimen was produced to observe cracks inside the finishing material using a thermal imaging camera, and thermal image data was measured by exciting a heat source on the concrete surface and cracked area. As a result of the measurement, it was confirmed that it was possible to observe cracks inside the finishing material with a width of 0.3mm, 0.5mm, and 0.7mm, but it was difficult to determine the cracks due to uneven temperature distribution due to surface peeling and peeling of the wallpaper. Accordingly, as a result of performing data analysis by deriving the amplitude and phase difference of the thermal image data, clear crack measurement was possible for 0.5mm and 0.7mm cracks. Based on this study, we hope to increase the efficiency of field application and analysis through the development of technology using big data-based deep learning in the diagnosis of internal crack damage in finishing materials.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.102-110
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• 2023

PSC-I girder bridges constitute the largest proportion among highway bridges in Korea. According to the precision safety diagnosis data for the past 10 years, approximately 41.3% of the PSC-I bridges have been graded as C. Furthermore, with the increase in the aging of bridges, preemptive management is becoming more important. Damage and deterioration to the deck and girder with a long replacement cylce can have considerable impacts on the service and deterioration of a bridge. In addition, the high rate of device damages, including expansion joints and bearings, necessitates an investigation into the influence of the device damage in the structural members of the bridge. Therefore, this study defined representative PSC-I girder bridges with single and multiple spans to evaluate heterogeneous damages that incorporate the damage of the bridge member and device with the deterioration of the deck. The heterogeneous damages increased a crack area ratio compared to the individual single damage. For the single-span bridge, the occurrence of bearing damage leads to the spread of crack distribution in the girder, and in the case of multi-span bridges, expansion joint damage leads to the spread of crack distribution in the deck. The research underscores that bridge devices, when damaged, can cause subsequent secondary damage due to improper repair and replacement, which emphasizes the need for continuous observation and responsive action to the damages of the main devices.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.30-39
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• 2023

Large dams, which are critical infrastructures for disaster prevention, are exposed to various risks such as aging, floods, and earthquakes. Better dam safety inspection and diagnosis using digital transformation technologies are needed. Traditional visual inspection methods by human inspectors have several limitations, including many inaccessible areas, danger of working at heights, and know-how based subjective inspections. In this study, drone photogrammetry was performed on two large dams to evaluate the applicability of digital data-based dam safety inspection and propose a data management methodology for continuous use. High-quality 3D digital models with GSD (ground sampling distance) within 2.5 cm/pixel were generated by flat double grid missions and manual photography methods, despite reservoir water surface and electromagnetic interferences, and severe altitude differences ranging from 42 m to 99.9 m of dam heights. Geometry profiles of the as-built conditions were easily extracted from the generated 3D mesh models, orthomosaic images, and digital surface models. The effectiveness of monitoring dam deformation by photogrammetry was confirmed. Cracks and deterioration of dam concrete structures, such as spillways and intake towers, were detected and visualized efficiently using the digital 3D models. This can be used for safe inspection of inaccessible areas and avoiding risky tasks at heights. Furthermore, a methodology for mapping the inspection result onto the 3D digital model and structuring a relational database for managing deterioration information history was proposed. As a result of measuring the labor and time required for safety inspection at the SYG Dam spillway, the drone photogrammetry method was found to have a 48% productivity improvement effect compared to the conventional manpower visual inspection method. The drone photogrammetry-based dam safety inspection is considered very effective in improving work productivity and data reliability.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2024

Bridges, which are construction structures, have increased from 584 to 38,405 since the 1970s. However, as the number of bridges increases, the number of bridges with a service life of more than 30 years increases to 21,737 (71%) by 2030, resulting in fatal accidents due to basic human resource maintenance of facilities. Accordingly, the importance of bridge safety inspection and maintenance measures is increasing, and the need for decision-making support for supervisors who manage multiple bridges is also required. Currently, the safety inspection and maintenance method of bridges is to write down damage, condition, location, and specifications on the exterior survey map by hand or to record them by taking pictures with a camera. However, errors in notation of damage or defects or mistakes by supervisors are possible, typos, etc. may reduce the reliability of the overall safety inspection and diagnosis. To improve this, this study visualizes damage data recorded in the BIM model in an AR environment and proposes a maintenance plan for bridges with a small number of people through maintenance decision-making support for supervisors.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.63-71
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• 2024

Through the development of construction technology, various construction projects such as redevelopment projects, undergrounding of roads, expansion of subways, and metro railways are being carried out. However, this has led to an increase in the number of construction projects in existing urban centers and neighborhoods, resulting in an increase in the number of damages and disputes between neighboring buildings and residents, as well as an increase in safety accidents due to the aging of existing buildings. In this study, digital data was applied to a graphics program to objectify the progress of cracks by comparing the creation of cracks and the increase in length and width through photographic images and presenting the degree of cracks numerically. Through the application of the program, the error caused by the subjective judgment of crack change, which was mentioned as a shortcoming of the existing field survey, was solved. It is expected that the program can be used universally in the building diagnosis process by improving its reliability if supplemented and improved in the process of use. As a follow-up study, it is necessary to apply the extraction algorithm of the digital graphic data program to calculate the length and width of the crack by itself without human intervention in the preprocessing work and to check the overall change of the building.