• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.180-185
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• 2004

Conventional ultrasonic examination to detect micro and small surface cracks is based on the pulse-echo technique using a normal immersion focused transducer with high frequency, or an angle-beam transducer generating surface waves. It is difficult to make an automatic ultrasonic system that can detect micro and small surface cracks and position in a large structure like steel and ceramic rolls, because of the huge data of inspection and the ambiguous position data of the transducer. In this study, a high-precision scanning acoustic microscope with a 10MHz large-aperture transducer has been used to assess the existence, position and depth of a surface crack from the real-time A, B, C scans obtained by exploiting the ultrasonic diffraction. The ultrasonic method with large aperture transducer has improved the accuracy of the crack depth assessment and also the scanning speed by ten times, compared with the conventional ultrasonic methods.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.289-298
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• 1993

Properties in terms of the variation of the glass compositions, which were density (p), molar volume(Vm), atom/ion packing density (Dp), refractive index (nD), transformation temperature (Tg), dilatometric softening point (Td), thermal expansion coefficient (α), Young's modulus (E), and knoop hardness (KHN) were investigated in CaO-SiO2 glasses and CaO-P2O5-SiO2 glasses containing less than 10mole% of P2O5. Those properties were measured by density measurement kit, Abbe refractometer, dilatometer, ultrasonic pulse echo equipment, and micro hardness tester. When CaO content was increased in CaO-SiO2 glasses, p, Dp, nD, Tg, Td, α, E and KHN were increased, while Vm was decreased. When P2O5 was added to the CaO-SiO2 glasses with constant CaO/SiO2 ratio as 1.07, p, Dp, nD, Tg, Td, α, E and KHN were decreased, while Vm was increased. When the amount of P2O5 in glasses was kept constant, the changes of the properties with variation of CaO content in the CaO-P2O5-SiO2 glasses were very similar to those of CaO-SiO2 glasses. These phenomena could be explained by the structural role of P2O5 in the CaO-P2O5-SiO2 glasses, which was polymerization of siicate structures and resulted in [PO4] monomer structure in glasses. Due to this structural characteristics, the bond strength and packing density were changed with compositions. Proportional relationships between 1) np and Dp, 2) Tg, Td, α and CaO content, 3) E and Vm-1, and 4) KHN and P2O5 content were evaluated in this investigation.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.109-113
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• 2018

Despite the continuous development of software, it is continuously pursued to enlarge the examination area of FOV in order to reduce the factors of inconsistency in images that appear in continuous examination during wide area examination using contrast agent such as whole body angiography. In this study, we investigated the optimal FOV by comparing the SNR values according to the changes of FOV. The change of the FOV was gradually changed to $270{\times}200$, $300{\times}223$, $330{\times}244$, $360{\times}266$ and $380{\times}281$. SE images at TR 450 msec and TE 10 msec, FSE images at TR 2,000 msec, TE 80 msec, and GE images were scanned at TR 117 msec, and TE 16 msec. SNR values were calculated from the mean values of signal intensities of five phantom images and the signal intensity values of four background standard deviations. As a result of the study, the signal intensity and the SNR value according to the change of the FOV value gradually increased as the FOV was increased, but it was found that the SNR value decreased at a constant size. In conclusion, the results are different from previous studies that the SNR increases as the FOV increases. The cause of these results could not be confirmed. However methods that can be imaged and included within the effective FOV should be considered.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.46-53
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• 2004

Ultrasonic testing method has been developed to evaluate flaw of adhesive layers in blast tube for the reliability of the rocket nozzle. The ultrasonic reflection from the interface between the steel sheet and the epoxy adhesive is measured with a high-frequency Pulse-echo setup in order to identify contact debonding and missing adhesive in epoxy layer between steel and FRP layers. The steel sheet is resonated by low-frequency ultrasound, and the gap size underneath the measuring location is estimated from the resonance responses. For practical application in industry an automated testing system has been developed where the proposed approach is implemented. The performance of the proposed approach has been verified by actual measurement of gap sizes from the cross-sections of cut specimens using an optical microscope.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.161-183
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• 2017

This paper investigates the damage identification of the concrete pile element through axial wave propagation technique using computational and experimental studies. Now-a-days, concrete pile foundations are often common in all engineering structures and their safety is significant for preventing the failure. Damage detection and estimation in a sub-structure is challenging as the visual picture of the sub-structure and its condition is not well known and the state of the structure or foundation can be inferred only through its static and dynamic response. The concept of wave propagation involves dynamic impedance and whenever a wave encounters a changing impedance (due to loss of stiffness), a reflecting wave is generated with the total strain energy forked as reflected as well as refracted portions. Among many frequency domain methods, the Spectral Finite Element method (SFEM) has been found suitable for analysis of wave propagation in real engineering structures as the formulation is based on dynamic equilibrium under harmonic steady state excitation. The feasibility of the axial wave propagation technique is studied through numerical simulations using Elementary rod theory and higher order Love rod theory under SFEM and ABAQUS dynamic explicit analysis with experimental validation exercise. Towards simulating the damage scenario in a pile element, dis-continuity (impedance mismatch) is induced by varying its cross-sectional area along its length. Both experimental and computational investigations are performed under pulse-echo and pitch-catch configuration methods. Analytical and experimental results are in good agreement.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.40-46
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• 2013

For a case study of suspected paraquat intoxication, we developed a simple and rapid method of $^1H$ qNMR to determine the mili-molar amount of paraquat in postmortem blood samples. There were no interfering signals from endogenous compounds in the chemical shift of paraquat and diquat (internal standard). The amount of sample used ranged from 0.25 mM to 10.0 mM. Diquat, which has similar physicochemical properties with paraquat, was chosen as an internal standard. The NMR experimental conditions, relaxation delay time and CPMG spin-echo pulse sequence were optimized. The developed method was validated in terms of specificity, accuracy, precision, matrix effect, recovery, limit of detection (LOD), and low limit of quantification (LLOQ). The proposed qNMR method provided a simple and rapid assay for the identification and quantification of the quaternary ammonium herbicide, "paraquat" in postmortem blood samples. This method was tested by using the blood from the heart of a man who was intoxicated with paraquat. In this particular case, the level of paraquat was 1.07 mM in the blood. For the determination of quaternary ammonium herbicides, qNMR could also be used to provide a better understanding of the currently available techniques.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 1995

In this paper, Polarity Thresholding(PT) algorithm has been studied to enhance the received signal in ultrasonic inspection of the stainless-steel(SUS 304) which is the primary piping material of a nuclear power plant. The spectral decomposition components obtained by splitting the spectrum of received signals are composed of dispersive signal of the interference pattern produced by the grain boundaries and nondispersive signal by the flaw. PT algorithm enhance the SNR of received signal by using above properties. In experiment the stainless-steel has been chosen as the sample and heat-treated at 1125, 1150, 1175, and $1200^\circ{C}$, respectively. And the flat-bottom hole type defects have been made artificially in samples. The pulse-echo signals from the sample by using ultrasonic transducer of center frequency 5 MHz have been processed by PT algorithm. It has been shown that PT algorithm enhanced the SNR by average 14.2 dB.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.230-237
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• 2003

Ultrasonic testing method has been developed to evaluate adhesive layers in blast tube for the reliability of the rocket. The main objective of the present work was to find debonding and missing adhesive in epoxy layer between steel and FRP layers. In this approach, the ultrasonic reflection from the interface between the steel sheet and the epoxy adhesive is measured with a high-frequency pulse-echo setup in order to identify contact debonding and missing adhesive. Then, the steel sheet is excited to resonance by low-frequency ultrasound, and the gap size underneath the measuring location is estimated from the resonance responses. For practical application in industry an automated testing system has been developed where the proposed approach is implemented. The performance of the proposed approach has been verified by actual measurement of gap sizes from the cross-sections of cut specimens using an optical microscope.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.210-222
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• 2017

Purpose: To develop a novel combination of controlled aliasing in parallel imaging results in higher acceleration (CAIPIRINHA) with integrated SSFP (CAIPI-iSSFP) for accelerated SSFP imaging without banding artifacts at 3T. Materials and Methods: CAIPI-iSSFP was developed by adding a dephasing gradient to the balanced SSFP (bSSFP) pulse sequence with a gradient area that results in $2{\pi}$ dephasing across a single pixel. Extended phase graph (EPG) simulations were performed to show the signal behaviors of iSSFP, bSSFP, and RF-spoiled gradient echo (SPGR) sequences. In vivo experiments were performed for brain and abdominal imaging at 3T with simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) acceleration factors of 2, 3 and 4 with CAIPI-iSSFP and CAIPI-bSSFP. The image quality was evaluated by measuring the relative contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and by qualitatively assessing banding artifact removal in the brain. Results: Banding artifacts were removed using CAIPI-iSSFP compared to CAIPI-bSSFP up to an SMS factor of 4 and 3 on brain and liver imaging, respectively. The relative CNRs between gray and white matter were on average 18% lower in CAIPI-iSSFP compared to that of CAIPI-bSSFP. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that CAIPI-iSSFP provides up to a factor of four acceleration, while minimizing the banding artifacts with up to a 20% decrease in the relative CNR.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.12-17
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• 2006

A steam generator of nuclear power plant has thousands of thin tubes. These tubes play an important role in maintaining the pressure boundary between the primary and secondary side of nuclear power plant. The steam generator tube is easy to be damaged because of the severe operating conditions such as the high temperature and pressure. Therefore, tremendous efforts are made to assess the structural integrity of the steam generator tubes. The eddy current test is the most popular non-destructive test to assess the integrity of the tubes. However, the eddy current test has the limitation to size the flaw accurately because the eddy current signal behavior depends on the total volume of flaw. This paper shows the possibility that the ultrasonic test method can be applied to detect the flaws in the steam generator tubes and to measure them quantitatively. From the test results, it is expected that if the ultrasonic test is put to practical use in the steam generator tube inspection, the inspection results will be improved.