• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.61-68
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• 2004

Recently, there has been an increasing demand for computer-vision based inspection and/or measurement system as a part of factory automation equipment. Existing manual inspection method can inspect only specific samples and has low measuring accuracy as well as it increases working time. Thus, in order to improve the objectivity and reproducibility, computer-aided analysis method is needed. In this paper, front and side profile inspection and/or data transfer system are developed using computer-vision during the inspection process on three kinds of pipes coming from a forming line. Straight line and circle are extracted from profiles obtained from vision using Laplace operator. To reduce inspection time, Hough Transform is used with clustering method for straight line detection and the center points and diameters of inner and outer circle are found to determine eccentricity and whether good or bad. Also, an inspection system has been built that each pipe's data and images of good/bad test are stored as files and transferred to the server so that the center can manage them.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.173-178
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• 2012

To manage the wall thinning of carbon steel piping in nuclear power plants, the utility of Korea has performed thickness inspection for some quantity of pipe components during refueling outages and determined whether repair or replacement after evaluating UT (Ultrasonic Test) data. When the existing UT data evaluation methods, such as Band, Blanket, PTP (Point to Point) Methods, are applied to a certain pipe component, unnecessary re-inspecting situations may be generated even though the component does not thinned. In those cases, economical loss caused by repeated inspection and problems of maintaining the pipe integrity followed by decreasing of newly inspected components may be generated. EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) in USA has suggested several statistical methods, TPM (Total Point Method), LSS (Least Square Slope) Method, etc. to distinguish whether multiple inspecting components have thinned or not. This paper presents the analysis results for multiple inspecting components over three times based on both NAM (Near Area of Minimum) Method developed by KEPCO-E&C and the other methods suggested by EPRI.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.367-373
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• 2011

Guided waves inspection techniques that are different with inspection technique by bulk waves are widely used in pipe line evaluation due to advantages of long distance inspection. However, most of pipe lines at industrial fields are buried and/or coated. In this case, due to the attenuation effect from soil and/or coating material, there are a lot of difficulty on inspection by conventional ultrasonic technique. In this paper, guided waves propagating patterns are calculated with respect to excitation mode by Normal Mode Expansion(NME). Guided waves patterns based on excited by single transducer and guided wave focusing technique have employed to analyze focusing pattern on a pipe. A longitudinal mode and high order flexural modes are used with various number of transducers to determine sensitivity. Guided waves energy excited by multi transducer with focusing algorithm was successfully focused at a desired point.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.46-51
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• 2010

A torsional guided wave was applied to detect a defect in petrochemical pipes. Phase and group velocity dispersion curves for the longitudinal and torsional modes of the inspected pipe were presented for the theoretical analysis. It was found through mode shape analysis that there was mode conversion when torsional wave is incident at an asymmetric defect. An artificial notch was fabricated in the pipe and the detectability was examined from the distance 2m of the end of the pipe by using magnetostrictive sensors. The relativities between the amplitude of the reflected signal and the size of the defect was examined. It was shown that the T(0,1) mode could be used for the long range inspection for the petrochemical pipes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.719-720
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• 2009

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.1780-1781
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• 2011

There have been numerous studies on application of robots to in-pipe inspection system. In this thesis, a mobile robot that can move through elbows and vertical pipes having diameter 100mm is developed. Defect detection technology for locating wall-thinnings, corrosions and foreign materials is developed for high temperature and pressure pipings in thermal power plants, utilizing laser sensors installed on the robot. Actual defect detection performance is evaluated with application of the developed robot system to a mock-up pipings.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.59-60
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• 2006

• Magazine of the Korea Institute for Structural Maintenance and Inspection
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.39-43
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• 2015

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.108-113
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• 2005

One of the recent safety issues in the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) is the cracking of the feeder pipe. Because of the limited accessibility to the cracked region and a high dose of radiation exposure, it is difficult to inspect all the pipes with the conventional ultrasonic method. In order to solve this problem, a long-range guided wave technique has been developed. A computer program to calculate the dispersion curves in the pipe was developed and the dispersion curves for the feeder pipes in PHWR plants were determined. Several longitudinal and/or flexural modes were selected from the review of the dispersion curves and an actual experiment has been carried out with the specific alignment of the piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers. They were confirmed as L(0,1)) and/or flexural modes(F(m,2)) by the short time Fourier transformation(STFT) and were sensitive to the circumferential cracks, but not to the axial cracks in the pipe. An electromagnetic acoustic transducers(EMAT) was designed and fabricated for the generation and reception of the torsional guided wave. The axial cracks were detected by a torsional mode(T(0,1)) generated by the EMAT.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.353-354
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• 2006

The automatic inspection system is developed for the formed end part of automotive fuel pipe. The developed system has functions of outer diameter and formed end length measurement by LVDT(linear variable differential transformer) together with burr cleaning of automotive fuel pipe. The measured data are managed and controlled in real time by embedded SPC(statistical process control) program. The system is composed of mechanical part, electronic part and developed software system. These three parts operate automatically by mutual communication with each other. The developed system showed good results in finding inferior goods and efficiency improvement of the fuel pipe production line. It also eliminated the unreliable manual inspection processes and improved the confidence of product quality.