• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.391-406
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• 2008

This study attempts to develop a real-time debonding monitoring system for carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) strengthened structures by continuously inspecting the bonding condition between the CFRP layer and the host structure. The uniqueness of this study is in developing a new concept and theoretical framework of nondestructive testing (NDT), in which debonding is detected without relying on previously-obtained baseline data. The proposed reference-free damage diagnosis is achieved based on the concept of time reversal acoustics (TRA). In TRA, an input signal at an excitation point can be reconstructed if the response signal measured at another point is reemitted to the original excitation point after being reversed in the time domain. Examining the deviation of the reconstructed signal from the known initial input signal allows instantaneous identification of damage without requiring a baseline signal representing the undamaged state for comparison. The concept of TRA has been extended to guided wave propagations within the CFRP-strengthened reinforced concrete (RC) beams to improve the detectibility of local debonding. Monotonic and fatigue load tests of large-scale CFRP-strengthened RC beams are conducted to demonstrate the potential of the proposed reference-free debonding monitoring system. Comparisons with an electro-mechanical impedance method and an inferred imaging technique are provided as well.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.601-608
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• 2011

This paper presents the damage assessment of a building structure by using a novel optical fiber accelerometer system. Especially, a sub-scaled building model is designed and manufactured to check up the feasibility of the optical fiber accelerometer for structural health monitoring. The novel accelerometer exploits the moir$\acute{e}$ fringe optical phenomenon and two pairs of optical fibers to measure the displacement with a high accuracy, and furthermore a pendulum to convert the displacement into acceleration. A prototype of optical fiber accelerometer system has been successfully developed that consists of a sensor head, a control unit and a signal processing unit. The building model is also designed as a 4-story building with a rectangular shape of $200{\times}300$ mm of edges. Each floor is connected to the next ones by 6 steel columns which are threaded rods. Basically, a random vibration test of the building model is done with a shaker and all of acceleration data is successfully measured at the assigned points by the optical fiber accelerometer. The experiments are repeated in the undamaged state and the damaged state. The comparison of dynamic parameters including the natural frequencies and the eigenvectors is successfully carried out. Finally, the optical fiber accelerometer is proven to be prospective to evaluate dynamic characteristics of a building structure for the damage assessment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.259-267
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• 2016

Most manufacturing processes, including welding, create residual stresses. Residual stresses can reduce material strength and cause fractures. For estimating the reliability and aging of a welded structure, residual stresses should be evaluated as precisely as possible. Optical techniques such as holographic interferometry, electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI), Moire interferometry, and shearography are noncontact means of measuring residual stresses. Among optical techniques, ESPI is typically used as a nondestructive measurement technique of in-plane displacement, such as stress and strain, and out-of-plane displacement, such as vibration and bending. In this study, ESPI was used to measure the residual stress on the welded part of butt-welded American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) A36 specimens with $CO_2$ welding. Four types of specimens, base metal specimen (BSP), tensile specimen including welded part (TSP), compression specimen including welded part (CSP), and annealed tensile specimen including welded part (ATSP), were tested. BSP was used to obtain the elastic modulus of a base metal. TSP and CSP were used to compare residual stresses under tensile and compressive loading conditions. ATSP was used to confirm the effect of heat treatment. Residual stresses on the welded parts of specimens were obtained from the phase map images obtained by ESPI. The results confirmed that residual stresses of welded parts can be measured by ESPI.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.1691-1701
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• 2006

The scan type magnetic camera is proposed to improve the limited spatial resolution due to the size of the packaged magnetic sensor. An image of the scan type magnetic camera, ${\partial}B/{\partial}x$ image, is useful for extracting the crack information of a specimen under a large inclined mag netic field distribution due to the poles of magnetizer. The ${\partial}B/{\partial}x$ images of the cracks of different shapes and sizes are calculated by using the improved dipole model proposed in this paper. The improved dipole model uses small divided dipole models, the rotation and relocation of each dipole model and the principle of superposition. Also for a low carbon steel specimen, the experimental results of nondestructive testing obtained by using multiple cracks are compared with the modeling results to verify the effectiveness of ${\partial}B/{\partial}x$ modeling. The improved dipole model can be used to simulate the LMF and ${\partial}B/{\partial}x$ image of a specimen with complex cracks, and to evaluate the cracks quantitatively using magnetic flux leakage testing.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.217-232
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• 1999

The ability to see the internal organs of the human body in a noninvasive way is a powerful diagnostic tool of modern medicine. Among these imaging modalities such as X-ray, MRI, and ultrasound. MRI and ultrasound are presenting much less risk of undesirable damage of both patient and examiner. In fact, no deleterious effects have been reported as a result of clinical examination by using MRI and ultrasound diagnostic equipment. As a result. their market volume has been rapidly increased. MRI has a good resolution. but there are a few disadvantages such as high price. non-real-time imaging capability. and expensive diagnostic cost. On the other hand, the ultrasound imaging system has inherently poor resolution as compared with X-ray and MRI. In spite of its poor resolution, the ultrasound diagnostic equipment is lower in price and has an ability of real-time imaging as compared with the others. As a result. the ultrasound imaging system has become general and essential modality for imaging the internal organs of human body. In this review various researches and developments to enhance the resolution of the ultrasound images are explained and future trends of the ultrasound imaging technology are described.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.556-562
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• 2007

This paper presents the use of a novel fiber optic accelerometer system to monitor ambient vibration (both wind-induced one and vehicle-induced) of a real bridge structure. This sensor system integrates the $Moir\'{e}$ fringe phenomenon with fiber optics to achieve accurate and reliable measurements. A low-cost signal processing unit implements unique algorithms to further enhance the resolution and increase the dynamic bandwidth of the sensors. The fiber optic accelerometer has two major benefits in using this fiber optic accelerometer system for monitoring civil engineering structures. One is its immunity to electromagnetic (EM) interference making it suitable for difficult applications in such environments involving strong EM fields, electrical spark-induced explosion risks, and cabling problems, prohibiting the use of conventional electromagnetic accelerometers. The other is its ability to measure both low- and high-amplitude vibrations with a constantly high resolution without pre-setting a gain level, as usually required in a conventional accelerometer. The second benefit makes the sensor system particularly useful for real-time measurement of both ambient vibration (that is often used for structural health monitoring) and strong motion such as earthquake. Especially, the semi-strong motion and the small ambient one are successfully simulated and measured by using the new fiber optic accelerometer in the experiment of the structural health monitoring of a real bridge.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.541-549
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• 2007

This work describes an investigation into the feasibility of using an acoustic emission (AE) technique to evaluate the integrity of a composite actuator with a PZT ceramic under electromechanical cyclic loading. AE characteristics have been analyzed in terms of the behavior of the AE count rate and signal waveform in association with the performance degradation of the composite actuator during the cyclic tests. The results showed that the fatigue cracking of the composite actuator with a PZT ceramic occurred only in the PZT ceramic layer, and that the performance degradation caused by the fatigue damage varied immensely depending on the existence of a protecting composite bottom layer. We confirmed the correlations between the fatigue damage mechanisms and AE signal types for the actuators that exhibited multiple modes of fatigue damage; transgranular micro damage, intergranular fatigue cracking, and breakdown by a short circuiting were related to a burst type signal showing a shortly rising and slowly decaying waveform with a comparably low voltage, a continuous type signal showing a gradual rising and slowly decaying waveform with a very high voltage and a burst and continuous type signal with a high voltage, respectively. Results from the present work showed that the evolution of fatigue damage in the composite actuator with a PZT ceramic can be nondestructively identified via in situ AE monitoring and microscopic observations.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.119-127
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• 2014

An epoxy coating applied to the concrete surface of a containment building deteriorates in hazardous environments such as those containing radiation, heat, and moisture. Unlike metals, the epoxy coating on a concrete liner absorbs and discharges moisture during the degradations process, so it has a different density and volume during service. In this study, acoustic impedance was adopted for characterizing the degradation of a glass-reinforced epoxy coating using the acoustic reflection coefficient (reflectance) on a rough epoxy coating. For estimating the acoustic reflectance on a wavy epoxy coating surface, a probabilistic model was developed to represent the multiple irregular reflections of the acoustic wave from the wavy surface on the basis of the simulated annealing technique. A number of epoxy-coated concrete specimens were prepared and exposed to accelerated aging conditions to induce an artificial aging degradation in them. The acoustic impedance of the degraded epoxy coating was estimated successfully by minimizing the error between a waveform calculated from the mathematical model and a waveform measured from the surface of the rough coating.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.185-191
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• 2012

Typically, a wedge is involved to generate effectively high inspection angle in pipe weld inspection using phased array ultrasonic technique. But the usage of this wedge for weld or access limited area can cause coverage limitation for the examination volume because of the wedge front length. Therefore, the shear wave phased array probe which can generate high inspection angle without wedge is essentially necessary. In this paper, the shear wave phased array ultrasonic probe which can generate high inspection angle designed by modeling and manufactured from the modelling result. And this shear wave probe tested whether it can detect and sizing for EDM test block that contains various depth. As results, the experimental results show that the designed shear wave phased array probe can detect and size with reliable accuracy. Therefore if this phased array probe apply in field inspection, it is expected that it show more reliable inspection result for plant structure having access limitation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.445-454
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• 1998

In order to establish a technical concept for the detection of defects in weldments in thin steel plate, an experimental and theoretical investigation was carried out for artificial defects in a steel plate having a thickness of 2.4mm by using the guided wave technique. In particular the goal was to find the most effective testing parameters paying attention to the relationship between the excitation frequency by a tone burst system and various incident angles. It was found that the test conditions that worked best was for a frequency of 840kHz and an incident angle of 30 or 85 degrees, most of the defects were detected with these conditions. Also, it was clear that a guided wave mode generated under an incident angle of 30 degrees was a symmetric mode, So, and that of 85 degrees corresponded to an antisymmetric mode, Ao. By using the two modes, most of all of the defects could be detected. Furthermore, it was shown that the antisymmetric mode was more sensitive to defects near the surface than the symmetric mode. Theoretical predictions confirmed this sensitivity improvement with Ao for surface defects because of wave structure variation and energy concentration near the surface.