• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.467-475
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• 2016

Ultrasonic propagation imaging (UPI) has shown great potential for detection of impairments in complex structures and can be used in wide range of non-destructive evaluation and structural health monitoring applications. The software implementation of such algorithms showed a tendency in time-consumption with increment in scan area because the processor shares its resources with a number of programs running at the same time. This issue was addressed by using field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) that is a dedicated processing solution and used for high speed signal processing algorithms. For this purpose, we need an independent and flexible block of logic which can be used with continuously evolvable hardware based on FPGA. In this paper, we developed an FPGA-based ultrasonic propagation imaging system, where FPGA functions for both data acquisition system and real-time ultrasonic signal processing. The developed UPI system using FPGA board provides better cost-effectiveness and resolution than digitizers, and much faster signal processing time than CPU which was tested using basic ultrasonic propagation algorithms such as ultrasonic wave propagation imaging and multi-directional adjacent wave subtraction. Finally, a comparison of results for processing time between a CPU-based UPI system and the novel FPGA-based system were presented to justify the objective of this research.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.565-582
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• 2008

This paper presents a feasibility study of flexible piezoelectric paint for use in wide-band low-profile surface-mount or embeddable ultrasonic sensor for in situ structural health monitoring. Piezoelectric paint is a piezoelectric composite with 0-3 connectivity. Because of its ease of application, piezoelectric paint can be readily fabricated into sensing element with complex pattern. This study examines the characteristics of piezoelectric paint in acoustic emission signal and ultrasonic guided wave sensing. A series of ultrasonic tests including pitch catch and pencil break tests were performed to validate the ultrasonic wave sensing capability of piezoelectric paint. The results of finite element simulation of ultrasonic wave propagation, and acoustic emission generated by a pencil lead break on an aluminum plate are also presented in this paper along with corresponding experimental data. Based on the preliminary experimental results, the piezoelectric paint appears to offer a promising sensing material for use in real-time monitoring of crack initiation and propagation in both metallic and composite structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.301-309
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• 2022

Protective coatings are most widely used anticorrosive structures for steel structures. The corrosion under the coating damages the host material, but this damage is completely hidden. Therefore, a field-applicable under-coating-corrosion visualization method has been desired for a long time. Laser ultrasonic technology has been studied in various fields as an in situ nondestructive inspection method. In this study, a comparative analysis was carried out between a guided-wave ultrasonic propagation imager (UPI) and pulse-echo UPI, which have the potential to be used in the field of under-coating-corrosion management. Both guided-wave UPI and pulse-echo UPI were able to successfully visualize the corrosion. Regarding the field application, the guided-wave UPI performing Q-switch laser scanning and piezoelectric sensing by magnetic attachment exhibited advantages owing to the larger distance and incident angle in the laser measurement than those of the pulse-echo UPI. Regarding the corrosion visualization methods, the combination of adjacent wave subtraction and variable time window amplitude mapping (VTWAM) provided acceptable results for the guided-wave UPI, while VTWAM was sufficient for the pule-echo UPI. In addition, the capability of multiple sensing in a single channel of the guided-wave UPI could improve the field applicability as well as the relatively smaller size of the system. Thus, we propose a guided-wave UPI as a tool for under-coating-corrosion management.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.7 s.178
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• pp.1847-1853
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• 2000

A computer simulation technique for 2-dimensional laser generated ultrasonic waves was developed for visualization and investigation of ultrasonic propagation in solids. The technique is similar to a finite difference method (FDM) and a mass-particle model method, but uses a new nodal calculation method based on fundamental consideration of an elastic wave equation. By this method, the propagation behavior oflaser generated ultrasonic wave in thermoelastic and ablation mode is visualized and shows good agreement with previous experimental result or the numerical analysis result by Green function.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.414-419
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• 2019

An ultrasonic based magnetostrictive position sensor (MPS) provides an indication of real target position. It determines the real target position by multiplying the propagation speed of ultrasonic wave and the time-of-flight between the receiving signals; one is the initial signal by an excitation current and the other is the reflection signal by the ultrasonic wave. The propagation speed of the ultrasonic wave depends on the temperature of the waveguide. Hence, the change of the propagation speed in various environments is a critical factor in terms of the positioning accuracy in the MPS. This means that the influence of the changes in the waveguide temperature needs to be compensated. In this paper, we presents a novel way to improve the positioning accuracy of MPSs using temperature compensation for waveguide. The proposed method used the inherent measurement blind area for the structure of the MPS, which can simultaneously measure the position of the moving target and the temperature of the waveguide without any additional devices. The average positional error was approximately -23.9 mm and -1.9 mm before and after compensation, respectively. It was confirmed that the positioning accuracy was improved by approximately 93%.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.389-397
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• 2015

Recently, wave propagation imaging based on laser scanning-generated elastic waves has been intensively used for nondestructive inspection. However, the proficiency of the conventional software based system reduces when the scan area is large since the processing time increases significantly due to unavoidable processor multitasking, where computing resources are shared with multiple processes. Hence, the field programmable gate array (FPGA) was introduced for a wave propagation imaging method in order to obtain extreme processing time reduction. An FPGA board was used for the design, implementing post-processing ultrasonic wave propagation imaging (UWPI). The results were compared with the conventional system and considerable improvement was observed, with at least 78% (scanning of $100{\times}100mm^2$ with 0.5 mm interval) to 87.5% (scanning of $200{\times}200mm^2$ with 0.5 mm interval) less processing time, strengthening the claim for the research. This new concept to implement FPGA technology into the UPI system will act as a break-through technology for full-scale automatic inspection.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.678-683
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• 2003

Ultrasonic method using SH(shear horizontal) wave has been developed to determine the surface damage in fatigued material. Fatigue damages based on propagation energy were analyzed by multiregression analysis and phase measurement in interrupted fatigue test specimen including CrMoV and 12Cr alloy steel. From the test results, as the fatigue damage increased the propagation time of the launched waves increased and amplitude of wavelet decreased. Also, analysis for the waveform modulation showed a reliable estimation, with confidence limit of 97% for 12Cr steel and 95% for CrMoV steel, respectively. Therefore, It is thought that SH ultrasonic wave technique can be applied to determine fatigue damage of in-service component nondestructively.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.90-96
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• 2009

Ultrasonic method using SH(shear horizontal) wave has been developed to determine the surface damage in fatigued material. Fatigue damages based on propagation energy were analyzed by multi-regression analysis in interrupted fatigue test specimen including CrMoV and 12Cr alloy steel. From the test results, as the fatigue damage increased the propagation time of the launched waves increased and amplitude of wavelet decreased. Also, analysis for the waveform modulation showed a reliable estimation, with confidence limit of 97% for 12Cr steel and 95% for CrMoV steel, respectively. Therefore, It is thought that SH ultrasonic wave technique can be applied to determine fatigue damage of in-service component nondestructively.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.83-89
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• 1994

It is important for an ultrasonic testing to know the sound pressure field and the directivity of ultrasonic waves propagating in a solid. The directivity of ultrasonic wave is closely related to the sensitivity, the scanning pitch, the arrangement of angle probe, and the defect kind in ultrasonic testing. This paper describes on the directivity measurement of ultrasonic wave using ultrasonic wave visualization method. The directivity of the shear wave emitted from the angle probes were constant during propagation. The difference of directivity was existed between 2MHz and 4MHz angle probes. The centers of directivity were located backward from the incident poing and inside of the angle probe and were not changed during the wave propagation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

A two-dimensional numerical model based on the finite element method was built to simulate the wave propagation phenomena that occur during the ultrasonic time of flight diffraction (TOFD) process. First, longitudinal-wave TOFD was simulated, and the numerical results agreed well with the theoretical results. Shear-wave TOFD was also investigated because shear waves have higher intensity and resolution. The shear wave propagation was studied using three models with different boundary conditions, and the tip-diffracted shear-to-longitudinal wave was extracted from the A-scan signal difference between the cracked and non-cracked specimens. This signal showed very good agreement between the geometrical and numerical arrival times. The results of this study not only provide better understanding of the diffraction phenomena in TOFD, but also prove the potential of shear-wave TOFD for practical application.