• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.309-333
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• 2010

Civil infrastructure, in both its construction and maintenance, represents the largest societal investment in this country, outside of the health care industry. Despite being the lifeline of US commerce, civil infrastructure has scarcely benefited from the latest sensor technological advances. Our future should focus on harnessing these technologies to enhance the robustness, longevity and economic viability of this vast, societal investment, in light of inherent uncertainties and their exposure to service and even extreme loadings. One of the principal means of insuring the robustness and longevity of infrastructure is to strategically deploy smart sensors in them. Therefore, the objective is to develop novel, durable, smart sensors that are especially applicable to major infrastructure and the facilities to validate their reliability and long-term functionality. In some cases, this implies the development of new sensing elements themselves, while in other cases involves innovative packaging and use of existing sensor technologies. In either case, a parallel focus will be the integration and networking of these smart sensing elements for reliable data acquisition, transmission, and fusion, within a decision-making framework targeting efficient management and maintenance of infrastructure systems. In this paper, prudent and viable sensor and health monitoring technologies have been developed and used in several large structural systems. Discussion will also include several practical bridge health monitoring applications including their design, construction, and operation of the systems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2237-2250
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• 2021

The analog-based Ex-core Neutron Flux Monitoring System (ENFMS) in Korean Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) has been performing its intended functions successfully for a long time. On the other hand, the primary concern with the extended use of analog systems is the aging effect, such as mechanical failures, environmental degradation, and obsolescence. The transition to a digital-based Man-Machine Interface Systems (MMIS) in Korea and other countries has been accelerating, but some systems are still analog-based IC systems, such as the ENFMS in APR1400 NPPs. Digitalized ENFMS can become a reality using computers and microprocessors owing to the progress in digital electronics and information technology. This paper presents the result of the first phase of the research on the digitalization of the ENFMS signal processing electronics for NPPs operated or produced in Korea. It has two main parts: (1) review engineering bases of ex-core neutron flux monitoring system, including nuclear engineering, instrumentation techniques, and analog and digital signal processing techniques, and (2) analysis of analog signal processing electronics of ENFMS for OPR1000 and APR1400 power plants. They are prerequisite to the second phase of the research which is the detailed implementation of the digitalization.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.86-92
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• 2022

Pipe failure due to thermal fatigue and environmental regulations are increasing the importance of pipe monitoring systems in industrial plants. Since most pipe monitoring systems are focus on external crack inspected, it is necessary to temperature and concentration measuring monitoring system inside the pipe. These systems have spatial uncertainty due to sample inspection by one-point measurement. In addition, real-time measurement is not possible due to the limitation of time delay due to contact measurement. In this study, CT-TDLAS (Computed tomography-Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy) apply to overcome the limitations of existing methods. Lasers exhibiting an absorption response at a wavelength of 1395 nm were arranged in a lattice pattern on measuring cell. It showed that the inside of the pipe changed to an unstable combustion state over time.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.spc
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• pp.11-17
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• 2022

In this study, we address the development of a floating platform system based on a unmanned surface vessel for wide-area sensing and monitoring of hazardous and noxious substances (HNSs). For long endurance, a movable floating platform with no mooring lines was used and modified for HNS sensing and monitoring. The floating platform was equipped with various sensors such as optical and thermal imaging cameras, marine radar, and sensors for detecting HNSs in water and air. Additionally, for experiment validation in real outdoor environments, a portable gas-exposure system (PGS) was built and installed on the monitoring system. The software for carrying out the mission was integrated with the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework. The practical feasibility of the developed system was verified through experimental tests conducted in inland water and real-sea environments.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_3
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• pp.811-818
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• 2022

Recently, the number of natural and environmental disasters is rapidly increasing due to extreme weather caused by climate change, and the scale of economic losses and damage to human life is increasing accordingly. In addition, with urbanization and industrialization, the characteristics and scale of extreme weather appearance are becoming more complex and large in different ways from the past, and need for remote sensing and artificial intelligence technology for responding and managing global environmental disasters. This special issue investigates environmental disaster observation and management research using remote sensing and artificial intelligence technology, and introduces the results of disaster-related studies such as drought, flood, air pollution, and marine pollution, etc. in South Korea performed by the i-SEED (School of Integrated Science for Sustainable Earth and Environmental Disaster at Pukyong National University). In this special issue, we expect that the results can contribute to the development of monitoring and management technologies that may prevent environmental disasters and reduce damage in advance.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.283-297
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• 2015

Jacket-type offshore structures are always exposed to severe environmental conditions such as salt, high speed of current, wave, and wind compared with other onshore structures. In spite of the importance of maintaining the structural integrity for an offshore structure, there are few cases to apply a structural health monitoring (SHM) system in practice. The impedance-based SHM is a kind of local SHM techniques and to date, numerous techniques and algorithms have been proposed for local SHM of real-scale structures. However, it still requires a significant challenge for practical applications to compensate unknown environmental effects and to extract only damage features from impedance signals. In this study, the impedance-based SHM was carried out on a 1/20-scaled model of an Uldolmok current power plant structure in Korea under changes in temperature and transverse loadings. Principal component analysis (PCA)-based approach was applied with a conventional damage index to eliminate environmental changes by removing principal components sensitive to them. Experimental results showed that the proposed approach is an effective tool for long-term SHM under significant environmental changes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.23-33
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• 2011

Habitats loss and fragmentation are major threats to biodiversity. There are various kinds of environmental assessment have been developed for various problems to solve. Yet, there are no well-developed methods for quantifying and predicting about biodiversity. To achieve a sustainable conservation for biodiversity, the structural diversity of forest must be assessed by proper indexes. This study aim to quantitatively assess the diversity of forest structure as habitats and results of the verification by bird survey for objective presentation of evidence. As a result of literature review, some indexes were selected as potential prediction tools for biodiversity; area of patch, area of core regions, shape of patch and average age of stand. The assessment results were estimated by monitoring of birds for accuracy verification and the results were almost in agreement with each others. But, 1 and 2 level of forests were showed ambiguous results. Certainly, this study was limited in some valuation indexes on landscape scale. Further studies should be considered that different environmental factors such as land use, disturbances by human and vegetation index. Also, we expect that the additional monitoring of birds should give rise to the result which is improved assessment results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.337-348
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• 2018

As the issue of microplastics (MPs) detection in tap water was raised in other countries in 2017, monitoring of MPs in drinking and source water, and sewage treatment plant (STP) effluents was initiated. This study intends to look into other studies on MPs in STPs at home and abroad, and review the characteristics of MPs and their removal efficiencies in the STPs, the risk and effect of MPs on watersheds, and management practices in order to help better understand MPs in STPs. To manage MPs effectively in STPs, it is necessary to investigate the detection of MPs discharged from STPs, do research on human health risk and control measures, and build a monitoring system including standardized analytical methods.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.1043-1060
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• 2016

The engineering background of this article is an ancient wooden building with extremely high historic and cultural values in Tibet. A full understanding of the dynamic behaviour of this historic building under in-service environments is the basis to assess the condition of the structure, especially its responses to earthquake, environmental and operational loading. A dynamic monitoring system has been installed in the building for over one year and the large amounts of high quality data have been obtained. The paper aims at studying the dynamic behaviour of the wooden building in seismic and operational conditions using the field monitoring data. Specifically the effects of earthquake and crowd loading on the structure's dynamic response are investigated. The monitoring data are decomposed into principal components using the Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) technique. The relationship between the average acceleration amplitude and frequencies of the principle components and operational conditions has been discussed. One main contribution is to understand the health condition of complex ancient building based on large databases collected on the field.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.331-348
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• 2013

Effective monitoring, reliable data analysis, and rational data interpretations are challenges for engineers who are specialized in bridge health monitoring. This paper demonstrates how to use the Global Positioning System (GPS) and accelerometer data to accurately extract static and quasi-static displacements of the bridge induced by ambient effects. To eliminate the disadvantages of the two separate units, based on the characteristics of the bias terms derived from the GPS and accelerometer respectively, a wavelet based multi-step filtering method by combining the merits of the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) with the discrete stationary wavelet transform (SWT) is proposed so as to address the GPS deformation monitoring application more efficiently. The field measurements are carried out on an existing suspension bridge under the normal operation without any traffic interference. Experimental results showed that the frequencies and absolute displacements of the bridge can be accurate extracted by the proposed method. The integration of GPS and accelerometer can be used as a reliable tool to characterize the dynamic behavior of large structures such as suspension bridges undergoing environmental loads.