• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.323-327
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• 2013

A laser ultrasonic inspection system has the advantage of nondestructive testing. It is a non-contact mode using a laser interferometer to measure the vertical displacement of the surface of a material caused by the propagation of ultrasonic signals with the remote ultrasonic generated by laser. After raising the ultrasonic signal with a broadband frequency range using a pulsed laser beam, the laser beam is focused to a small point to measure the ultrasonic signal because it provides an excellent measurement resolution. In this paper, foreign materials are measured by a non-destructive and non-contact method using the laser ultrasonic inspection system. Mixed foreign material on the corroded part is assumed and the laser ultrasonic experiment is conducted. An ultrasonic wave is generated by pulse laser from the back of the specimen and an ultrasonic signal is acquired from the same location of the front side using continuous wave laser and Confocal Fabry-Perot Interferometer (CFPI). The characteristic of the ultrasonic signal of existing foreign material is analyzed and the location and size of foreign material is measured.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.7 s.178
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• pp.1847-1853
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• 2000

A computer simulation technique for 2-dimensional laser generated ultrasonic waves was developed for visualization and investigation of ultrasonic propagation in solids. The technique is similar to a finite difference method (FDM) and a mass-particle model method, but uses a new nodal calculation method based on fundamental consideration of an elastic wave equation. By this method, the propagation behavior oflaser generated ultrasonic wave in thermoelastic and ablation mode is visualized and shows good agreement with previous experimental result or the numerical analysis result by Green function.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.152-162
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• 2001

Laser-generated ultrasonic technique which is one of the reliable nondestructive evaluation techniques has been applied to evaluate the integrity of structures by analyzing the characteristics of signal obtained from surface crack. Therefore, the signal analysis of the laser-generated ultrasonics is absolutely necessary for the accurate and quantitative estimation of the surface defects. In this study, one-sided measurement by laser-generated ultrasonic has been applied to evaluate the depth of the surface-breaking crack in the materials. However, since the ultrasonic waveform excited by pulse laser is very difficult to distinguish the defect signals, it is necessary to consider the signal analyses of the transient waveform. Wavelet Transform(WT) is a powerful tool for processing transient signals with temporally varying spectra that helps to resolve high and low frequency transient components effectively. In this paper, the analyses of the surface-breaking crack of the ultrasonic signal excited by pulse laser are presented by employing the WT analyses.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.160-164
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• 2013

A laser ultrasonic inspection system is a non-contact inspection device which generates and measures ultrasonics by using laser beam. A laser ultrasonic inspection system provides a high measurement resolution because the ultrasonic signal generated by a pulse laser beam has a wide-band spectrum and the ultrasonic signal is measured from a small focused spot of a measuring laser beam. In this study, galvanic corrosion phenomenon was measured by non-destructive and non-contact method using the laser. The case of mixed foreign material on the part of corrosion was assumed and laser ultrasonic experiment was conducted. Ultrasonic was generated by pulse laser from the back side of the specimen and ultrasonic signal was acquired from the same location of the front side using continuous wave laser and Confocal Fabry-Perot Interferometer(CFPI). The characteristic of the ultrasonic signal of exist foreign material part was analyzed and the location and size of foreign material was measured.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.599-608
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• 2002

The mechanical properties of mullite $(3Al_2O_3\;2SiO_2)$ environmental barrier coatings are determined using a laser-based ultrasonic system. The waveforms generated by a laser source in mullite coatings in the $1-20{\mu}m$ thickness range are evaluated theoretically using the integral transform technique. It is shown that the laser source generated the two lowest order SAW modes in these systems. Experimental waveforms are generated using a 600ps pulsed Nd:YAG microchip laser and detected using a stabilized Michelson interferometer. The dispersion curves for the generated modes are extracted from the experimental data and the mechanical properties of the coatings are obtained by minimizing the error between the measured and calculated velocity values. The waveforms generated in mullite coatings agree well with theory and laser-based ultrasonics is shown to provide an effective tool for the nondestructive evaluation of ceramic coatings.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.174-179
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• 2003

Non-destructive test on the size and depth of cracks has been required for the safety evaluation of structures. Ultrasonic method based on laser techniques is one of the most popular non-destructive methods which overwhelm PZT based tests. In the present paper, ultrasonic was generated by high powered Q switching Nd:YAG pulse laser. Experiments were carried out using Fabry-Perot interferometer which was intensively discussed in the present study.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.657-666
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• 2020

A rotational pulse-echo ultrasonic propagation imager that can inspect cylindrical specimens for material nondestructive evaluations is proposed herein. In this system, a laser-generated ultrasonic bulk wave is used for inspection, which enables a clear visualization of subsurface defects with a precise reproduction of the damage shape and size. The ultrasonic waves are generated by a Q-switched laser that impinges on the outer surface of the specimen walls. The generated waves travel through the walls and their echo is detected by a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) at the same point. To obtain the optimal Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of the measured signal, the LDV requires the sensed surface to be at a right angle to the laser beam and at a predefined constant standoff distance from the laser head. For flat specimens, these constraints can be easily satisfied by performing a raster scan using a dual-axis linear stage. However, this arrangement cannot be used for cylindrical specimens owing to their curved nature. To inspect the cylindrical specimens, a circular scan technology is newly proposed for pulse-echo laser ultrasound. A rotational stage is coupled with a single-axis linear stage to inspect the desired area of the specimen. This system arrangement ensures that the standoff distance and beam incidence angle are maintained while the cylindrical specimen is being inspected. This enables the inspection of a curved specimen while maintaining the optimal SNR. The measurement result is displayed in parallel with the on-going inspection. The inspection data used in scanning are mapped from rotational coordinates to linear coordinates for visualization and post-processing of results. A graphical user interface software is implemented in C++ using a QT framework and controls all the individual blocks of the system and implements the necessary image processing, scan calculations, data acquisition, signal processing and result visualization.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.246-254
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• 2007

The scanning laser source (SLS) technique is a promising new laser ultrasonic tool for the detection of small surface-breaking defects. The SLS approach is based on monitoring the changes in laser-generated ultrasound as a laser source is scanned over a defect. Changes in amplitude and frequency content are observed for ultrasound generated by the laser over uniform and defective areas. The SLS technique uses a point or a short line-focused high-power laser beam which is swept across the test specimen surface and passes over surface-breaking or subsurface flaws. The ultrasonic signal that arrives at the Rayleigh wave speed is monitored as the SLS is scanned. It is found that the amplitude and frequency of the measured ultrasonic signal have specific variations when the laser source approaches, passes over and moves behind the defect. In this paper, the setup for SLS experiments with full B-scan capability is described and SLS signatures from small surface-breaking and subsurface flaws are discussed using a point or short line focused laser source.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.391-399
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• 2005

Laser-generated ultrasonic inspection system is a non-contact scanning inspection device with high spatial resolution and wide bandwidth. The amplitude of laser-generated ultrasound is varied according to the energy of pulse laser and the surface conditions of an object where the CW measuring laser beam is pointing. In this paper, we correct the generating errors by measuring the energy of pulse laser beam and correct the measuring errors by extracting the gain information of laser interferometer at each time. h dynamic stabilizer is developed to stably scan on the surface of an object for an laser-generated ultrasonic inspection system. The developed system generates ultrasound after adaptively finding the maximum gain time of an laser interferometer and processes the signal in real time after digitization with high speed. In this paper, we describe hardware configuration and control algorithm to build a stable laser-generated ultrasonic inspection system. Also, we confirmed through experiments that the proposed correction method for the generating errors and measuring errors is effective to improve the performance of a system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.71-76
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• 2005

The defects evaluation of the interior and the surface would be considered as vital characteristics in predicting the total life span of the steel structure. More importantly, the understandings in the interior composite of welding zone and the notifications in the presence, the formation, and the positioning of the non-metallic inclusion are necessary as well, since there were signs of relatively high defect frequency presented in the welding zone. The ultrasonic testing is a highly recommended technique chosen from among other techniques because of variety of advantages in conducting the non-destructive testing for the welding zone. However, the ultrasonic testing had technical disadvantages referred as followings; the problems due to the couplant between the PZT and the specimen, the formations that were miniature and complex, the moving subject, and the high temperature surrounding the specimen. This research was conducted to resolve the technical disadvantages of the contact ultrasonic testing by studying the non-contact ultrasonic testing where the ultrasonic waves were transferred by the laser, and revealing the specimen defects at its interior part and its surface part. The ultimate goal of this research was to develop a non-destructive evaluation applying the laser manipulated ultrasonic method for the steel structure.