• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.535-544
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• 1996

In this paper, we analyzed the coil-magnet type vibrating transducer for the implantable middle ear hearing aid which is appropriate for patient's hearing level, and an experimental transducer system is designed For the objective and quantitative analysis of the transducer, a theoretical equivalent model containing coil, magneto and inner ear is developed To perform effective evaluation of the transducer, a transforming ratio Tr is introduced and its range that is suitable for practical implantable middle ear hearing device is foun4 The result of applying physical parameters of ear system to the proposed analytical model shows that frequency response of the coil magrlet type vibrator is predominantly governed by resistive impedance of the coil rather than inertia effect of the magnet and the inner parameters. In addition, we realized an experimental middle ear hearing aid system to show the theoretical validity of designed system and this will provide the basis of the development for actually implantable system.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.423-430
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• 2011

The most satisfactory split-beam transducer for fish sizing maintains a wide bearing angle region for correct fish tracking without interference from side lobes and lower sensitivity to fish echoes outside of the main lobe region to correctly measure the angular location of free-swimming fishes in the sound beam. To evaluate the performance of an experimentally developed 50 kHz split-beam transducer, the angular location of a target was derived from the electrical phase difference between the resultant signals for the pair of transducer quadrants in the horizontal and vertical planes consisting of 32 transducer elements. The electrical phase difference was calculated by cross-spectral density analysis for the signals from the pair of receiving transducer quadrants, and the directivity correction factor for a developed split-beam transducer was estimated as the fourth-order polynomial of the off-axis beam angle for the angular location of the target. The experimental results demonstrate that the distance between the acoustic centers for the pair of receiving transducer quadrants can be controlled to less than one wavelength by optimization with amplitude-weighting transformers, and a smaller center spacing provides a range of greater angular location for tracking of a fish target. In particular, a side lobe level of -25.2 dB and an intercenter spacing of $0.96\lambda$($\lambda$= wavelength) obtained in this study suggest that the angular location of fish targets distributing within a range of approximately ${\pm}28^{\circ}$ without interference from side lobes can be measured.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.393-401
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• 2013

In this paper, a $48{\times}64$ channel 2D array ultrasonic transducer with piezoelectric single crystals was designed, fabricated, and evaluated. Structure of the transducer was chosen to facilitate the electric connection on the planar array, and then components were fabricated in accordance with the structure. Detailed structure of the transducer was designed through finite element analyses. In order to improve the performance of the transducer, the crosstalk between adjacent elements was reduced through the control of kerf width and material, and the target frequency bandwidth was achieved through optimal design of the thickness of the single crystal and matching layers. After fabricating a prototype of the transducer according to the design and measuring its characteristics, the results were compared with those of finite element analyses to evaluate the performance of the developed transducer.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.10
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• pp.256-263
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• 2014

We have designed and made three kinds of FBG(Fiber Bragg Grating) Acoustic Transducer using Hopper type WDM on the use of recently developed FBG in Korea. The newly designed three kinds of FBG Acoustic Transducer using Hopper type WDM have an excellent merit of practical use with simple structure of sensors arm as well as the merit with existing fiber sensors. It was possible to detect sound waves in the range of 10 Hz to 18 kHz through the newly designed three kinds of FBG Acoustic Transducer and also, possible to detect its signal within the maximum range of 8.6 m by the use of most suitable resonance condition of the transducer. Especially, we can expect the utilization of low-frequency signal detection instead of existing acoustic sensor in the environment of electric noise and inferior condition. Furthermore, they can be developed as the high-sensibility and multi-point signal detection system through the sensor array system.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.199-207
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• 2013

In this paper, a $64{\times}8$ channel 1.75D ultrasonic transducer made of piezoelectric single crystals was designed, fabricated, and evaluated. First, a structure of the transducer was selected to be suitable for wiring on a planar array, and components were fabricated to correspond to the structure. Detailed structure of the transducer was designed through finite element analyses. As main performance factors, the crosstalk between neighboring elements was reduced through the control of kerf width and material, and desired frequency bandwidth of the transducer was achieved by designing the optimal thicknesses of the piezoelectric single crystal and matching layers. An experimental prototype of the transducer was fabricated following the design, and its performance was measured. Then the experimental results were compared with those of the finite element analysis, which led to the evaluation of the transducer developed in this work.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Navigation
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.1-39
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• 1981

A doppler log is the typical device which can measure the ship's speed over the ground directly, by means of doppler effect of the underwater ultrasonic wave, which involves the error due to the sea bottom inclination, the trim and the incorrect transducer installation etc. The present doppler log adopts a single transducer, faced in the direction of themain beam, and therefore it is unable to correct the beam direction to eliminate the above mentioned error. Moreover, the frequencyis also limitted in a comparatively high range for getting a sharp beam with single transducer, and the speed over the ground can not be detectable at the deep sea, for an instance, over 200 meters. This paper describes a theoretical consideration for the doppler log error and an analysis by a computer on the observed speed data by a full size model ship. The result is verified that the most of doppler log error is caused by the ultrasonic beam angle of transducer. To eliminate the doppler log error due to the incorrect transducer installation and also to sharpen the beam for lower frequency range to expand measurable sea depth, this paper proposes a method of controlling the directivity adopting a linear transducer array and of controlling the directivity by the control of exciting current, and investigates by the computer simulation and make experiment with magnetostrictive ferrite transducer of 28, 50 and 75KHz. The experimental results are shown well coincide with the measured ones, and they are revealed that in case where the transducer interval is greater than 1 wavelength, the effective control of the beam direction is hardly performed with keeping adequate beam width and side lobe level. It is concluded that 6-elements array with inter element space of a half wavelength can make comparatively sharp beam and low side lobe level. The results obtained here will contribute very much to the improvement of the performance of doppler log.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2019

This work proposes a noncontact ultrasonic transducer for detecting wall-thinning of containment liner plates of nuclear power plants by measuring their thickness without physical contact. Because the containment liner plate is designed to prevent atmospheric leakage of radioactive substances under severe nuclear accident, its wall-thinning inspection is important for safety of nuclear power plants. Wall-thinning investigation of containment liner plates have been carried out by measuring their thickness with contact-type ultrasonic thickness gauge by inspectors and needs a lot of time and cost. As an alternative, an electromagnetic acoustic transducer measuring precisely thickness of containment liner plates without any physical contact or couplant was suggested in this research. A transducer generating and measuring shear ultrasonic waves in thickness direction was designed and wave field produced by the transducer was analyzed to verify the design. The working performance of the suggested transducer was tested with carbon steel plate specimens with various thicknesses. The test result shows that the proposed transducer can measure thickness of the specimens precisely without any couplant and implies that swift scanning of wall-thinning of containment liner plates will be possible with the proposed transducer.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.148-156
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• 2016

The paper deals with improvement of a piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer for measuring both pipe thickness and flow velocity. The transducer structure is based on the conventional transducers for measuring flow velocity by obliquely transmitting ultrasonic waves to the flow direction. The transducer invented earlier for measuring flow velocity and pipe thickness had an advantage of including only one piezoelectric disc, but for the thickness measurement the ultrasonic wave had to be reflected twice in a wedge material to be transmitted vertically to a pipe, and thus the wave signal was too weak. The transducer has been improved to transmit waves for thickness measurement vertically to a pipe without any prior reflection by electrically connecting two piezoelectric discs, one for flow velocity and the other for pipe thickness measurement. By comparing the measured results of specimen thickness with the improved transducer and conventional transducers, the accuracies of the improved one have been evaluated in the pipe thickness measurements.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.761-776
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• 2018

Guided wave testing is a reliable and safe method for pipeline inspection. In general, guided wave testing employs a circumferential array of piezoelectric transducers to clamp on the pipe circumference. The sensitivity of the operation depends on many factors, including transducer distribution across the circumferential array. This paper presents the sensitivity analysis of transducer array for the circumferential characteristics of guided waves in a pipe using finite element modelling and experimental studies. Various cases are investigated for the outputs of guided waves in the numerical simulations, including the number of transducers per array, transducer excitation variability and variations in transducer spacing. The effect of the dimensions of simulated notches in the pipe is also investigated for different arrangements of the transducer array. The results from the finite element numerical simulations are then compared with the related experimental results. Results show that the numerical outputs agree well with the experimental data, and the guided wave mode T(0,1) presents high sensitivity to the notch size in the circumferential direction, but low sensitivity to the notch size in the axial direction.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.278-286
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• 2011

The on-line monitoring for the wall thinning in secondary system has been considered one of main issues for the safety of nuclear power plants. To establish the on-line monitoring technique for the pipe wall thinning, the development of the ultrasonic transducer working in high-temperature is very important. In this investigation, the magnetostrictive transducer is concerned for high temperature condition up to $300^{\circ}C$. The magnetostrictive transducer has many advantages such as high working temperature, durability, cost-effectiveness, and shear waves, most of all. A thin Fe-Co alloy patch whose Curie temperature is over $900^{\circ}C$ was employed as a ferromagnetic material for magnetostriction. Wave transduction experiments in various temperature were carried out and the effect of bias magnets was considered together with the dry coupling performance of the transducer. From experimental results, consequently, it was found that the magnetostrictive transducer works stable even in high temperature up to $300^{\circ}C$ and can be a promising method for the on-line monitoring of the wall thinning in nuclear power plants.