• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.373-379
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• 2010

EMAT has been applied in various fields for flaw detection and material characterization because it has noncontact property in wave generation and a good mode selectivity. Unfortunately, however, EMAT shows low signal to noise ratio relative to commercial contact transducer because of low energy conversion efficiency. If the phase matching through the control of time delay between each coil consisting of the array EMAT is accomplished, it is expected that it will be a solution for the improvement of low signal to noise ratio. In this experiment, the phased array EMATs which consists of 3 or 4 meander coils and one big magnet were fabricated for surface and vertical shear wave generation. Effect of phased delay control on signal directivity and amplitude enhancement was verified. A slit with the depth of 0.5 mm and a side-drill hole of 0.5 mm diameter were clearly detected by fabricated phased array EMATs, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.501-510
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• 2000

Recently, advanced signal analysis which is called "time-frequency analysis" has been used widely in nondestructive evaluation applications. Wavelet transform(WT) and Wigner Distribution are the most advanced techniques for processing signals with time-varying spectra. Wavelet analysis method is an attractive technique for evaluation of material characterization nondestructively. Wavelet transform is applied to the time-frequency analysis of ultrasonic echo waveform obtained by an ultrasonic pulse-echo technique. In this study, the feasibility of noise suppression of ultrasonic flaw signal and frequency-dependent ultrasonic group velocity and attenuation coefficient using wavelet analysis of ultrasonic echo waveform have been verified experimentally. The Gabor function is adopted the analyzing wavelet. The wavelet analysis shows that the variations of ultrasonic group velocity and attenuation coefficient due to the change of material characterization can be evaluated at each frequency. Furthermore, to assure the enhancement of detectability and naw sizing performance, both computer simulated results and experimental measurements using wavelet signal processing are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the noise suppression of ultrasonic flaw signal obtained from austenitic stainless steel weld including EDM notch.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.30-38
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• 1989

Since the nuclear power plants in Korea have been operated in 1979, the nondestructive testing (NDT) of pressure vessels and/or piping welds plays an important role for maintaining the safety and integrity of the plants. Ultrasonic method is superior to the other NDT method in the viewpoint of the detectability of small flaw and accuracy to determine the locations, sizes, orientations, and shapes. As the service time of the nuclear power plants is increased, the radiation level from the components is getting higher. In order to get more quantitative and reliable results and secure the inspector from the exposure to high radiation level, automation of the ultrasonic equipments has been one of the important research and development(R & D) subject. In this research, it was attempted to visualize the shape of flaws presented inside the specimen using a Modified C-Scan technique. In order to develope Modified C-Scan technique, an automatic ultrasonic scanner and a module to control the scanner were designed and fabricated. IBM-PC/XT was interfaced to the module to control the scanner. Analog signals from the SONIC MARK II were digitized by Analog-Digital Converter(ADC 0800) for Modified C-Scan display. A computer program has been developed and has capability of automatic data acquisition and processing from the digital data, which consist of maximum amplitudes in each gate range and locations. The data from Modified C-Scan results was compared with shape from artificial defects using the developed system. Focal length of focused transducer was measured. The automatic ultrasonic equipment developed through this study is essential for more accurate, reliable, and repeatable ultrasonic experiments. If the scanner are modified to meet to appropriate purposes, it can be applied to automation of ultrasonic examination of nuclear power plants and helpful to the research on ultrasonic characterization of the materials.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.144-149
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• 2011

The lock-in thermography was employed to evaluate the integrity of railway bogies. Prior to the actual application on railway bogies, in order to assess the detectability of known flaws, the calibration reference panel was prepared with various dimensions of artificial flaws. The panel was composed of structural steel, which was the same material with actual bogies. Through lock-in thermography evaluation, the optimal frequency of heat source was determined for the best flaw detection. Based on the defects information, the actual defect assessments on railway bogie were conducted with different types of railway bogies, which were used for the current operation. In summary, the defect assessment results with thermography method showed a good agreement as compared with the conventional inspection techniques. Moreover, it was found that the novel infrared thermography technique could be an effective way for the inspection and the detection of surface defects on bogies since the infrared thermography method provided rapid and non-contact mode for the investigation of railway bogies.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.919-925
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• 2016

In this study, the Lamb wave mixing technique, which is basised on advanced research on the nonlinear bulk wave mixing technique, is applied for corrosion detection. To demonstrate the validity of the Lamb wave mixing technique, an experiment was performed with normal and corroded specimens. Comparison group in an experimentation are selected to mode and frequency with dominant in-plane displacement and out-of-plane displacement of Lamb waves. The results showed that the Lamb wave mixing technique can monitor corrosion defects, and it has a trend similar to that of the conventional Lamb wave technique. It was confirmed that the dominant displacement and mode matching the theory were generated. Flaw detectability is determined depending on displacement ratio instead of using the measurement method and mode selection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 1997

Recently high frequency ultrasonic transducers to employ polyvinylidene fluoride(PVDF) or polyvinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene P(VDF-TrFE) have been used to detect small flaws in immersion testing. The detection field depending on the water path between the transducer and a specimen and the path in a tested specimen was measured using a PVDF transducer with nominal frequency 80MHz. Also, C-scan and B-scan were performed for the specimens made of Cr-Ni steel with the artificial flaws, the flat-bottom holes with diameter ranging from $50{\mu}m$ to $560{\mu}m$ at 12mm depth. As the result, the flaws with diameter larger than $280{\mu}m$ were detected, but the flaws with the ratio of diameter to wavelength smaller than about 0.48 were not detected. That the smaller flaws could not be detected was attributed to the attenuation of high frequency components in the steel specimens.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.63-68
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• 2013

Some essential components in nuclear power plants are periodically inspected using non-destructive examinations, for example ultrasonic, eddy current and radiographic examinations, in order to determine their integrity. These components include nuclear power plant items such as vessels, containments, piping systems, pumps, valves, tubes and core support structure. Steam generator tubes have an important safety role because they constitute one of the primary barriers between the radioactive and non-radioactive sides of the nuclear power plant. There is potential that if a tube bursts while a plant is operating, radioactivity from the primary coolant system could escape directly to the atmosphere. Therefore, in-service inspections are critical in maintaining steam generator tube integrity. In general, the eddy current testing is widely used for the inspection of steam generator tubes due to its high inspection speed and flaw detectability on non-magnetic tubes. However, it is not easy to analyze correctly eddy current signals because they are influenced by many factors. Therefore, the performance of eddy current data analysts for steam generator tubing should be demonstrated comprehensively. In Korea, the performance of steam generator tubing analysts has been demonstrated using the Qualified Data Analyst program. This paper describes the performance demonstration program for steam generator tubing analysts and its implementation results in Korea. The pass rate of domestic analysts for this program was 71.4%.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 2005

There are many tube and pipeline in nuclear power plant under high temperature and high pressure. Erosion and corrosion defects were expected on these tube and pipe-line by environmental and mechanical factors. These erosion and corrosion defects ran be evaluated by ultrasonic technique. In these study, Scanning Laser Source(SLS) technique was applied to detect defect and construct image. This technique also makes detection possible on rough and curved surfaces such as tube and pipe-line by scanning. Conventional ultrasonic scanning technique requires immersion of specimen or water jet for transferring ultrasonic wave between transducer and specimen. However, this SLS technique does not need contacting and couplant to generate surface wave and to get flaw images. Therefore, this SLS technique has several advantages, for complicated production inspection, non-contact, remote from specimen, and high resolution. In this study, SLS images were obtained with various conditions of generation laser ultrasound and receiving in order to enhance detectability of flaws on the tube. Stress corrosion cracks were produced on tube and images of stress corrosion cracks were constructed by using SLS technique.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 2004

It is possible to detect flaws in pipelines without interruption using all EMAT transducer because it is a non-contact transducer which can transmit ultrasonic waves into specimens without couplant. And it ran easily generate guided waves desired in each specific problem by altering the design of coil and magnet. In the present work, EMAT systems have been fabricated to generate surface waves, and selectively the plate wave of $A_1\;or\;S_1$ mode. The surface wave of 1.5MHz showed a good signal-to-noise ratio without distortion in its propagation along a pipeline, while the $S_1$ mode of 800kHz and the $A_1$ mode of 940kHz were distorted according to their dispersive properties. The wider the excitation pulse becomes, the better the mode selectivity of the plate waves becomes. A pipe of 256mm inner diameter and 5.5m thickness with 5 flaws was used for comparing the flaw detectability among the modes under consideration.