• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.165-170
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• 2014

Shear horizontal (SH) waves propagate as a type of plate wave in a thin sheet. The dispersion characteristics of SH waves can be used for signal analysis. Therefore, SH-waves are useful for monitoring the structural health of a thin-sheet-structure. An electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT), which is a non-contact ultrasonic transducer, can generate SH-waves easily by varying the shape and array of magnets and coils. Therefore, an EMAT can be applied to an automated ultrasonic testing system for structural health monitoring. When used as a sensor, however, the EMAT has a weakness in that electromagnetic interference (EMI) noise can occur easily in the automated system because of motors and electric devices. Alternatively, a fiber optic sensor works well in the same environment with EMI noise because it uses a light signal instead of an electric signal. In this paper, a fiber Fabry-P$\acute{e}$rot interferometer (FFPI) was proposed as a sensor to receive the SH-waves generated by an EMAT. A simple test was performed to verify the performance of the FFPI sensor. It is thus shown that the FFPI can receive SH-wave signals clearly.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1511-1519
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• 2012

Pipe structures contain many welded zones, and ultrasonic tests are increasingly being performed by using automated testing devices in order to evaluate the weld integrity. An electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) is a noncontact transducer that can transmit or receive ultrasonic waves without a couplant. Furthermore, it can easily generate specific guided waves such as SH (shear horizontal) or Lamb waves by altering the design of the coil and magnet. Therefore, an EMAT should be useful for application to an automated ultrasonic inspection system. In this study, SH waves generated using an EMAT were applied to inspect the pipe-weld zone. To analyze the specific SH mode (SH0) from the SH wave signals, wavelet transform was applied. It was found that flaws could be detected precisely because the intensity of the $SH_0$ mode-frequency, which is analyzed by using wavelet transform, is proportional to the length of the flaw.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.48-53
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• 2016

An EMAT can be used to reliably detect defects as it serves as a non-contact transducer with the ability to transmit ultrasonic waves into specimens without couplant. Moreover, an EMAT can easily generate desired waves by altering the design of the coil and magnet. This study proposes an SH-EMAT to evaluate the integrity of the TIG welding part. A stainless steel was welded using the TIG welding method. The welding current was varied to create artificial defects. Both the PA-UT and the RT were applied to verify the defect size. The experimental results generated by using the EMAT were compared with those methods. The amplitude was observed to decrease with an increase in the defect size. These results confirmed that the presence of defects can be reliably detected by attenuation of signal amplitude. The results demonstrated that the proposed method is suitable for evaluating the integrity of TIG welding.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2011

An electromagnetic acoustic transducer(EMAT) is a non-contact transducer which can transmit the ultrasonic guided waves into specimens without couplant. And it can easily generate specific guided waves such as SH(shear horizontal) or Lamb waves by altering the design of coil and magnet. In this study, the SH wave, which is generated by EMAT, has been applied to estimate the thickness-reduction in a steel plate. Especially, the interesting feature of the dispersive behavior in selected wave modes is used to detect the thickness-reduction. Experimental results show that the reduction-level can be quantified by the measurement of the group velocity of the wave which passes though the thinning area.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.198-203
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• 2010

In this paper, study on the mode characteristics analysis of the SH-EMAT (shear horizontal, electromagnetic acoustic transducer) waves for evaluating the thickness reduction in plates such as corrosion and friction is presented. Noncontact methods for ultrasonic wave generation and detection have been a great concern and highly demanded due to their capability of wave generation and reception on surface of high temperature or on rough surface. Mode identification of the SH-EMAT wave is carried out in an aluminum plate with thinning defects using time frequency analysis method such as wavelet transform, compared with theoretically calculated group velocity dispersion curve. The changes of various wave features such as the amplitude and the time-of-flight have been observed and the correlations with the thickness reduction have been investigated. Firstly, experiments have been conducted to confirm that it is possible to selectively generate and receive specific desired SH modes. These modes have then been analyzed to select the parameters that are sensitive to the thickness change. The results show that the mode cutoff and the time-of-flight changes are feasible as key parameters to evaluate the thickness reduction.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.74-78
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• 2010

In this paper, a non-contact method of evaluating the thickness reduction in an aluminum sheet caused by corrosion and friction using SH-EMAT (shear horizontal, electromagnetic acoustic transducer) is described. Since this method is based on the measurement of the time-of-flight and amplitude change of guided waves caused from the thickness reduction, it provides information on the thinning defects. Information was obtained on the changes of the various wave features, such as their time-of-flight and amplitude, and their correlations with the thickness reduction were investigated. The interesting features in the dispersive behavior of selected guided modes were used for the detection of thinning defects. The measurements of these features using SH waves were performed on aluminum specimens with regions thinned by 7.2% to 29.5% of the total thickness. It is shown that the time-of-flight measurement provides an estimation of the thickness reduction and length of the thinning defects.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1993.04b
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• pp.198-203
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• 1993

In this study, byusing EMAT(Electro Magnetic Acoustic Transducer) the artificial slit is installed on 12B-SUS pipe test piece. By mading 4 cycle SH-bust wave (EMA) incidence to 45 .deg. angle, the signaldata of pulse, which is recevied from EMAT translated intodigital-signal-processing-method SSP and Deconvolution method by using FACOM. Results of these indicated that (1) this method of this study shows exellent result more than Ultrasonic testing method; (2) noise is well removed by SSP using signal dataa and resolving power and S/N ratio are advanced; (3) regradless of Ultrasonic wave, whichhas properties of generalstainless steel is generated into multiscattering and reflection phenomena, the resolving power of more than two times is progressed by being translated into Decon-volution method; and (4) as addition-averaging-processing number is increaing, the resolving power and S/N ratio are improved and the satisfactory signal is obtained.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.32-40
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• 1994

In this study by using EMAT(electro magnetic acoustic transducer)the artificial slit is installed on 12B-SUS pipe test piece. By making 4 cycle SH-burst (EMA) incidence to 45 .deg. angle, the signal data of pulse, received from EMAT are translated into digital-signal-processing- method SSP(Split Spectrum Processing) and Deconvolution method. The main conclusions obtained are as follows; (1) the signal data received from EMAT are translated with digital signal proc- essing of SSP-method and Deconvolution-method and this method shows exellent results more than Ultrasonic testing method does; (2) noise can well be removed by SSP with signal data, and resolution and S/N ratio are advanced; (3) when used with Ultrasonic wave general stainless steel has proporties of multiscattering and reflection phenomena, but resolution is progressed by using Deconvolution method;and (4) as addition-averaging-processing mumber is increasing, the resolution and S/N ratio are improved and the satisfactory signal is obtained.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1994.10a
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• pp.383-388
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• 1994

Ultrasonic sensor for evaluating plastic anisotropy was developed. Magnetostrictive type EMAT is sensor to transmit and receive the Lamb wave using magnetostriction. It is suitable for on line processing because of transmitting and receiving ultrasonic without contact ODCs(orientation distribution coefficients), W $_{400}$. W $_{420}$. W $_{440}$. were respectively calculated using zeroth order Lamb wave velocities, the calculated ODCs was used for evaluating plastic anisotropy, the results was compared for mean values of destructive tests. Besides, the Lorentz EMAT for generating longitudinal wave and two shear waves simultaneously and the Lorentz type EMAT for measuring SH wave velocities were made. ODCs were calculated using the measured resonant modes and velocities. the results of two methods show possibility of an line processing measurement.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.1041-1063
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• 2014

This work introduces a two-module robotic pipe inspection system with ultrasonic NDE device to evaluate the integrity of pipe structures. The proposed robotic platform has high mobility. The two module mobile robot platform overcomes pipe obstacle structures such as elbow, or T-branch joints by cooperative maneuvers. Also, it can climb up the straight pipeline at a fast speed due to the wheel driven mechanism. For inspection of pipe structure, SH-waves generated by EMAT are applied with additional signal processing methods. A wavelet transform is implemented to extract a meaningful and specific signal from the superposed SH-wave signals. Intensity ratio which is normalized the defect signals intensity by the maximum intensity of directly transmitted signals in the wavelet transforms spectrum is applied to evaluate defects quantitatively. It is experimentally verified that the robotic ultrasonic inspection system with EMAT is capable of non-destructive inspection and evaluation of defects in pipe structure successfully by applying signal processing method based on wavelet transform.