• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.437-443
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• 2024

The development and testing of inspection equipment is necessary for the safe deployment of advanced nuclear reactors. One proposed advanced reactor design is Westinghouse's lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR). In this paper, the process of achieving adequate wetting for an ultrasonic under-lead viewing system is discussed and results presented. Such a device would be used for inspection in the molten lead core during reactor outages. Wider tests into the wetting of various materials in molten lead at microscale were performed using electron microscopy. The possible mechanisms and kinetics for materials wetting in lead, particularly stainless steel and nickel, are proposed and discussed.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.225-232
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• 2010

In this study, an automated ultrasonic testing system and post signal and image processing techniques are developed in order to construct ultrasonic flaw images in weldments. Image processing algorithms are built into the flaw image processing system for the automated ultrasonic testing system. The developed signal and image analysis algorithms addressed in this study include an A-Scan data compression algorithm, ultrasonic image amplification algorithm and B-scan flaw image correction algorithm(SAFT). This flaw image processing system for the automated ultrasonic testing system can be applied to various inspection fields.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.40-48
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• 2001

An ultrasonic test method, as a nondestructive test is applied to ensure the clad interface quality assessment. According to the reference codes and standards, not only korea Industrial Standard(KS) but also American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standard, ultrasonic examination procedures use the pulse-echo, A-scan, back reflection signal drop method and/or side drilled reference hole used to establish the acceptance criteria of clad material test. But the variety of bonding materials and sizes makes it difficult to produce the reference blocks, or thus the criteria. In order to overcome these practical difficulties, new ultrasonic testing criterion is suggested. In this new method, the theoretical interface reflection signal amplitude level is calculated and suggested as an acceptance criteria with the back reflection signal set to 100% FSH(Full Screen Height) which is based on acoustic impedance mismatch at the clad interface for the explosive clad ultrasonic inspection. Applicability of suggested criterion, for the explosive clad Fe-Naval Brass with different bonding quality is confirmed to the pre-existed KS and ASTM specifications and verified by using SEM (Seanning Electron Microscope) micrograph. The results obtained by the suggested method is more conservative than the results according to the KS B 0234 and ASTM A 578 specifications The suggested method could be applicable to any other combination of explosive clad ultrasonic inspection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.591-597
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• 2001

Ti alloy is used for essential parts of aircraft for high temperature environment. Although Ti alloy has excellent performance in regard to mechanical properties, it is difficult ot find fatigue cracks by nondestructive ultrasonic inspection due to its two-phase microstructure, which consists of hard alpha and beta phases. Sound energy reflected from microstructural features in the component produces a background inspection noise which is seen even when no defects are present. This noise can inhibit the detection of critical internal defects such as pores cracks or inclusions. To obtain fundamental data on ultrasonic inspection of Ti alloy, ultrasonic testing was performed using a specimen with small drill holes and ultrasonic wave propagation velocites were measured.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.146-152
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• 2020

This study was initiated to develop an effective inspection method to detect defects such as corrosion in closed-cell steel members in steel-box girder bridges. The ultrasonic velocity method among various non-destructive method was selected as a rapid and effective method to derive the average propagation velocity in the medium by using the ultrasonic wave velocity method for specimens of different thickness. The regression analysis was performed based on the experimental results, and the results was interpolated to evaluate the prediction accuracy. If the material properties are identical, this ultrasonic velocity method can predict the thickness using the averaged transmitted velocity. In addition, a continuous scanning method moving at 200 mm/s was tested for scanning a wide area of a bridge. The results exhibited that the continuous scanning method was able to effectively scan the different thickness of a bridge.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.11-20
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• 2022

The general non-destructive inspection method for anchor bolts in Korea applies visual inspection and hammering inspection, but it is difficult to check corrosion or fatigue cracks of anchor bolts in the part included in the foundation or in the part where the nut and base plate are installed. In reality, objective investigation is difficult because inspection is affected by the surrounding environment and individual differences, so it is necessary to develop non-destructive inspection technology that can quantitatively estimate these defects. Inspection of the anchor bolts of domestic road facilities is carried out by visual inspection, and since the importance of anchor bolts such as bridge bearings and fall prevention facilities is high, the life span of bridges is extended through preventive maintenance by developing non-destructive testing technology along with existing inspection methods. Through the development of this technology, non-destructive testing of anchor bolts is performed and as a technology capable of preemptive/active maintenance of anchor bolts for road facilities, practical use is urgently needed. In this paper, the possibility of detecting defects in anchor bolts such as corrosion and cracks and reliability were experimentally verified by applying the ultrasonic test among non-destructive inspection techniques. When the technology development is completed, it is expected that it will be possible to realize preemptive/active maintenance of anchor bolts by securing source technology for improving inspection reliability.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2010

Ultrasonic inspection of heavy walled cast austenitic stainless steel(CASS)welds is very difficult due to complex and coarse grained structure of CASS material. The large size of anisotropic grain strongly affects the propagation of ultrasound by severe attenuation, change in velocity, and scattering of ultrasonic energy. therefore, the signal patterns originated from flaws can be difficult to distinguish from scattered signals. To improve detection and sizing capability of ID connected defect for heavy walled CASS piping welds, the low frequency segmented TRL Pulse Echo and Phased Array probe has been developed. The experimental studies have been performed using CASS pipe mock-up block containing artificial reflectors(ID connected EDM notch). The automatic pulse echo and phase array technique is applied the detection and the length sizing of the ID connected artificial reflectors and the results for detection and sizing has been compared respectively. The goal of this study is to assess a newly developed ultrasonic probe to improve the detection ability and the sizing of the crack in coarse-grained CASS components.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.290-295
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• 2000

The joint treatment of concrete is one of the technical problems in top down construction method. Joints created with the top down construction result in serious weakness from the aspects of both structural and water-barrier function. Ultrasonic method was used for the inspection of top down construction joints of a various column in SRC structure in this study. The advantages and limitations of this method for non-destructive inspection in top down construction joints are investigated. As a result, it has been verified that the semi-direct measurement method is more effective than the other methods for detecting the voids of construction joints using ultrasonic method.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.223-230
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• 2018

This study examines a non-contact laser scanning-based ultrasound system, called an angular scan pulse-echo ultrasonic propagation imager (A-PE-UPI), that uses coincided laser beams for ultrasonic sensing and generation. A laser Doppler vibrometer is used for sensing, while a diode pumped solid state (DPSS) Q-switched laser is used for generation of thermoelastic waves. A high-speed raster scanning of up to 10-kHz is achieved using a galvano-motorized mirror scanner that allows for coincided sensing and for the generation beam to perform two-dimensional scanning without causing any harm to the surface under inspection. This process allows for the visualization of longitudinal wave propagation through-the-thickness. A pulse-echo ultrasonic wave propagation imaging algorithm (PE-UWPI) is used for on-the-fly damage visualization of the structure. The presented system is very effective for high-speed, localized, non-contact, and non-destructive inspection of aerospace structures. The system is tested on an aluminum honeycomb sandwich with disbonds and a carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) honeycomb sandwich with a layer overlap. Inspection is performed at a 10-kHz scanning speed that takes 16 seconds to scan a $100{\times}100mm^2$ area with a scan interval of 0.25 mm. Finally, a comparison is presented between angular-scanning and a linear-scanning-based pulse-echo UPI system. The results show that the proposed system can successfully visualize defects in the inspected specimens.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.621-626
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• 2002

The amplitude of a back-wall echo depends on the reflection coefficient of the interface between a transducer and a test material when using contact pulse-echo ultrasonic testing. A couplant is used to transmit ultrasonic energy across the interface, but has an influence on the amplitude of the pulse-echo signal. To investigate the couplant effect on pulse-echo ultrasonic testing, back-wall echoes are measured by using various couplants made of water and glycerine in a carbon and austenitic stainless steel specimens. The amplitude of the first back-wall echo and the apparent attenuation coefficient increases with the acoustic impedance of the couplant. The couplant having a higher value of the transmission coefficient is more effective for flaw detection. The reflection coefficient should be known in order to measure the attenuation coefficient of the test material.