• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.360-366
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• 2011

The Elasto-magnetic sensor is applied to detect the local cross-sectional loss of steel cables in this study while it was originally developed for measuring the tensile force in the previous works. To verify the feasibility of the proposed damage detection technique, steel bars which have 4-different diameters were fabricated and the output voltage value was measured at each diameter by the E/M sensor. Optimal input voltage and working point are chosen so that the linearity and resolution of results can ensure through repeated experiments, and then the E/M sensor was measured the output voltage values at the damage points of steel bar specimen that was applied the 4 types of damage condition based on the selected optimal experimental condition. This proposed approach can be an effective tool for steel cable health monitoring.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.466-471
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• 2011

Optical coherence tomography(OCT) is an emerging medical diagnostic tool that draws great attention in medical and biological fields. It has a 10-100 times higher spatial resolution than that of the clinical ultrasound but lower imaging depth such as 1-2 mm. In order to image internal organs, OCT needs an endoscopic probe. In this paper, the principle of Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography with high-speed imaging capability was introduced. An OCT endoscope based on MEMS technology was developed. It was attached to the Fourier-domain OCT system to acquire three-dimensional tomographic images of gastrointestinal tract of New Zealand white rabbit. The endoscope had a two-axis scanning mirror that was driven by electrostatic force. The mirror stirred an incident light to sweep two-dimensional plane by scanning. The outer diameter of the endoscope was 6 mm and the mirror diameter was 1.2 mm. A three-dimensional image rendered by 200 two-dimensional tomographs with $200{\times}500$ pixels was displayed within 3.5 seconds. The spatial resolution of the OCT system was 8 ${\mu}m$ in air.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.29-40
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• 2011

Warm-Mix Asphalt(WMA) technologies have been developed since 15 years ago, which are internationally and domestically concerned with energy-saving and environmental-friendly technologies in public and private sectors of highway engineering. The performance of asphalt mass is traditionally evaluated by the penetration, viscosity, or Superpave tests. This research, however, is focused more on the properties depending on asphalt film thicknesses instead of evaluating asphalt mass behaviors by those tests. For this approach, a new testing protocol and analysis method are described by the bonding properties on each film thickness. This testing method and analysis tool are borrowed from those of DSR Moisture Damage test and applied by using ARES. The analysis results indicate that there is a limit film thickness between $200{\mu}m$ and $400{\mu}m$, which causes significant changes of the properties. In addition, the results show that the property changes of Hot-Mix Asphalt(HMA) and WMA on the limit film thickness are also different. Therefore, it is suggested that the properties on thin film thicknesses between $200{\mu}m$ and $400{\mu}m$ should be considered in order to evaluate WMA properly.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.146-154
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• 2009

Multiplex ligation dependent probe amplification (MLPA) is a PCR-based method to detect gene dosage. Since its introduction, MLPA has been used to test a large number of genes for major deletions or duplications. Genetic testing, as a diagnostic tool for genetic disease, has been used primarily to identify point mutations, including base substitutions and small insertions/deletions, using PCR and sequence analysis. However, it is difficult to identify large deletions or duplications using routine PCR- gel based assays, especially in heterozygotes. The MLPA is a more feasible method for identification of gene dosage than another routine PCR-based methods, and better able to detect deleterious deletions or duplications. In addition to detection of gene dosage, MLPA can be applied to identify methylation patterns of target genes, aneuploidy during prenatal diagnoses, and large deletions or duplications that may be associated with various cancers. The MLPA method offers numerous advantages, as it requires only a small amount of template DNA, is applicable to a wide variety of applications, and is high-throughput. On the other hand, this method suffers from disadvantages including the possibility of false positive results affected by template DNA quality, difficulties identifying SNPs located in probe sequences, and analytical complications in quantitative aspects.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.443-451
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• 2013

Acoustic emission(AE) has emerged as a powerful nondestructive tool to detect any further growth or expansion of preexisting defects or to characterize failure mechanisms. Recently, this kind of technique, that is an in-situ monitoring of inside damages of materials or structures, becomes increasingly popular for monitoring the integrity of large structures like a huge wind turbine blade. In this study, the activities of AE signals generated from external artificial sources was evaluated and located by new developed signal mapping source location method and this test is conducted by 750 kW full-scale blade. And a new source location method was applied to assess the damage in the wind turbine blade during step-by-step static load test. In this static loading test, we have used a full scale blade of 100 kW in capacity. The results show that the acoustic emission activities give a good agreement with the stress distribution and damage location in the blade. Finally, the applicability of the new source location method was confirmed by comparison of the result of source location and experimental damage location.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.3-12
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to describe the Non-Destructive Testing(NDT) of the rockbolt and investigate the applicability of the NDT methods to estimate the integrity of the rockbolt. To examine the rockbolt integrity including rockbolt itself and grouting material, two methods are adopted: numerical and experimental methods. In the numerical method, the numerical code DISPERSE is used to analyze the dispersion of the rockbolt. The dispersion curve shows the effects of the thickness and stiffness of grouted materials on the embedded rockbolt. Therefore, the optimal frequency for the integrity test of the rockbolt is obtained: 20~120kHz in L(1,0) mode. In the experimental methods, destructive and non-destructive tests are carried out in a laboratory. In the non-destructive test, the low frequency mode generated by an impact and t he high frequency mode generated by an ultrasonic transducer seem to characterize the rockbolt condition readily. The experimental results show that the guided waves attenuate more significantly when the stiffness of the grouted material increases and/or the zone of the defect increases. Meanwhile, the ultimate capacity of rockbolt was evaluated through the pull-out tests and is compared to the NDT results. This study demonstrates that the NDT is a valuable tool for the rockbolt integrity evaluation.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.228-235
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• 2016

Aquatic ecosystems are receiving various harmful effects due to anthropogenic chemical pollutions. To protect wildlife, risk assessments of the chemicals are conducted using reference indexes of toxicity estimated by species-level laboratory tests and/or micro-/mesocosm community-level studies. However, the existing micro-/mesocosm communities are structurally too complicated, and it is also difficult to compare the experimental results directly with those from species-level tests. Here, we developed a procedure of a simple bi-trophic microcosm experiment which contains the common species (a green algae, Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata and a cladoceran, Daphnia magna) for testing chemical toxicities. For the proper operation of bitrophic microcosm experiment, the minimum required concentration of primary producer (P. subcapitata) is $5{\times}10^5cells\;mL^{-1}$. The microcosm system showed higher stability when the initially introduced D. magna population was composed of neonates (<24-h old) than adults and those mixture. This simple microcosm system would be an applicable tool to estimate the disturbing impacts of pollutants on plant-herbivore interactions, and linking the species- and population-/community level risk assessments in the future studies.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.532-538
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• 2002

This study was performed to classify the fatigue crack opening and closure for three kinds of aluminum alloy using principal component analysis (PCA). Fatigue cycle loading test was conducted to acquire AE signals which come from different source mechanisms such as crack opening and closure, rubbing, fretting etc. To extract the significant feature from AE signal, correlation analysis was performed. Over 94% of the variance of AE parameters could accounted for the first two principal components. The results of the PCA on AE parameters showed that the first principal component was associated with the size of AE signals and the second principal component was associated with the shape of AE signals. An artificial neural network (ANN) an analysis was successfully used to classify AE signals into six classes. The ANN classifier based on PCA appeared to be a promising tool to classify AE signals for fatigue crack opening and closure.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2007

As one of the main support systems, rock bolts play a crucial role in the reinforcement of tunnels. Numerical and experimental studies using a transmission method of ultrasonic guided waves are performed to evaluate the integrity of rock bolts encapsulated by grouting paste. Numerical simulations using "DISPERSE" are carried out for the selection of the optimal experimental setup, i.e. non-destructive testing (NDT) system of the rock bolt. Based on results of the numerical simulation, the calculated frequency range for NDT testing is between 20kHz and 70kHz with the first longitudinal L(1) mode. Laboratory transmission tests are performed by attaching the piezo electric sensor at the tip of the rock bolt before embedding. Both of analytical and experimental results show that the amplitude of signals as well as the wave velocity increases with increase in the defect ratio of grouting paste. The defect in grouting paste means that the space around the rock bolt is not fully filled with the grouting paste. Experimental results also show that the increase of the wave velocity is more sensitive to the defect ratio increase than that of the amplitude. This study demonstrates that the transmission technique of ultrasonic guided waves may be a valuable tool in the evaluation of the rock bolt integrity.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.219-223
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• 2015

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) causes paratuberculosis or Johne's disease, an intestinal granulomatous infection in domestic and wild animals. The study aimed to develop and evaluate a panel of multiplex quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (mqPCR) assay for simultaneous detection of three MAP-specific genes (IS900, F57 and ISMAP02 genes). The analytic sensitivity (i.e., limit of detection, expressed as cells per 1 ml) was 150 for IS900, 1500 for F57, and 50 for ISMAP02. The specificity of the method was determined by testing 152 bovine fecal samples. Based on the test, it showed that the assay simultaneously detected the target genes in short period of time and at lower cost compared to laboratory routine tests. The test agreement between the assay and routine test was 94%. The discrepancy in the results was due to samples that were tested positive by the panel but negative by the routine tests, suggesting that the assay has higher sensitivity than the routine tests. In conclusion, the mqPCR assay could be a rapid and accurate testing tool for investigating paratuberculosis or Johne's disease cases in domestic and wild animals.