• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.164-176
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• 2008

In order to assess the existing infrastructures, it is required to measure the crack depth of concrete members. This paper considers the surface wave transmission technique to measure the crack depth. In special, we demonstrate the effect of reinforced bar on surface wave propagation and conclude that the surface wave transmission technique has only the minor error by the reinforced bar. In addition, we propose and validate the optimal window size for eliminating various reflection waves from the boundary of members.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.437-443
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• 2010

In recent years, as nano scale structured thin film technology has emerged in various fields such as the materials, biomedical and acoustic sciences, the quantitative nondestructive adhesion evaluation of thin film interfaces using ultra high frequency scanning acoustic microscopy(SAM) has become an important issue in terms of the longevity and durability of thin film devices. In this study, an effective technique for investigating the interfaces of nano scale structured thin film systems is described, based on the focusing of ultrasonic waves, the generation of leaky surface acoustic waves(LSAWs), V(z) curve simulation and ultra high frequency acoustical imaging_ Computer simulations of the V(z) curve were performed to estimate the sensitivity of detection of micro flaws(i.e., delamination) in a thin film system. Finally, experiments were conducted to confirm that a SAM system operating at a frequency of 1 GHz can be useful to visualize the micro flaws in nano structured thin film systems.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.254-260
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• 2002

In this study, two types of mobile robotic systems using NDT (Non-destructive testing) method are developed for automatic diagnosis of the boiler tubes and large size pipelines. The developed mobile robots crawl the outer surface of the tubes or pipelines and detect in-pipe defects such as pinholes, cracks and thickness reduction by corrosion and/or erosion using EMAT (Electro-magnetic Acoustic Transducer). Automation of fault detection by means of mobile robotic systems for these large-scale structures helps to prevent significant troubles without danger of human beings under harmful environment.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.439-445
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• 2005

The stud bolt is one of crucial parts for safe operation of reactor vessels in nuclear power plants, Crack initiation and propagation were reported in stud bolts that arc used for closure of reactor vessel and head, Stud bolts are inspected by ultrasonic technique during overhaul periodically for the prevention of stud bolt failure which could induce radioactive leakage from nuclear reactor, In conventional ultrasonic testing for inspection of stud bolts, cracks are detected by using shadow effect It takes too much time to inspect stud bolts by using conventional ultrasonic technique. In addition, there were numerous spurious signals reflected from every oblique surfaces of thread, In this study, the signal processing technique for enhancing conventional ultrasonic technique was introduced for inspecting stud bolts. The signal processing technique provides removing spurious signal reflected from every oblique surfaces of thread and enhances detectability of defects. Detectability for small crack was enhanced by using this signal processing in ultrasonic inspection of stud bolts in Nuclear Power Plants.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.5-13
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• 2005

Acoustic emission(AE) is defined as the transient elastic waves thar are generated by the rapid release of energy. The advantage of AE is that very early crack growth can be detected well before a highly stressed component may fail. At present, an exact diagnosis is the most reliable means for determining the soundness of structures during power plant operations. AE monitoring has been applied successfully in power plants to determine mechanical problems, pressure vessel integrity and external valves leaks, vacuum leaks, the onset of cavitation in pumps and valves, the presence of flow(or no flow) in piping and heat exchange equipment, etc. Acoustic emission(AE) technology has recently strengthened its application base, and practitioners' understanding of the technique's fundamentals. This paper introduces the methods of a survey and assessment on AE monitoring applications in nuclear, fossil and hydraulic power plant. The main objective of this paper was to obtain information on various applications of AE technology in power plant.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.52-60
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• 2015

Nuclear power plant contain many dissimilar metal welds that connect carbon steel components with stainless steel pipes using alloy600 welding materials. Primary water stress corrosion cracks at dissimilar metal welds have been continuously reported around the world. In periodic integrity evaluations, dissimilar metal welds are examined using a generic ultrasonic testing procedure, KPD-UT-10. In this procedure, the gap between the probe and examination surface is limited to 1/32 inch (0.8mm). It is not easy to test some dissimilar metal welds in Korean plants applying ordinary technology because of their tapered shapes and irregular surface conditions. This paper introduces a method for applying a flexible phased array technology to improve the reliability of ultrasonic testing results for various shapes and surface conditions. The artificial flaws in specimens with irregular surfaces were completely detected using the flexible phased array ultrasonic technology. Therefore, it can be said that the technology is applicable to field examination.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.415-424
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• 2001

The destructive method is reliable and widely used for the estimation of material degradation but, it have time-consuming and a great difficulty in preparing specimens from in-service industrial facilities. Therefore, the estimation of degraded structural materials by nondestructive evaluation is strongly desired. In this paper, the use of guided wave was suggested for the evaluation on thermally damaged 2.25Cr-1Mo steel as an alternative way to compensate for limitations of fracture tests. The observation of microstructure variations of the material including carbide precipitation increase and spheroidization near grain boundary was conducted and the correlation with the guided wave features such as energy loss ration and group velocity changes was investigated. Through this study, the feasibility of ultrasonic guided wave evaluation for thermally damaged materials was explored.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.119-124
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• 2008

In recent years, gradually increasing interest has been directed to the use of terahertz technology in nondestructive testing and non-invasive measurements, and terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) has become a key technology in such applications. This paper deals with the terahertz pulse generation from cadmium telluride via optical rectification process of femto-second infrared laser pulses. The measured terahertz spectrum is compared with the result of model calculation based on space-time domain nonlinear Maxwell equations for coherent frequency mixing process. The propagation process of terahertz and infra-red pulses in the material as well as the surface interference and free space diffraction effects are also considered. The experimental results are in good agreements with the calculated spectrum.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.385-391
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• 2013

X-ray computed tomography is a very powerful nondestructive technique in safety inspection of historic timber building. But, in field, various testing condition makes it difficult to carry out X-ray CT testing. Limited size in X-ray digital detector is one of the problems. In this study, a pitch pine disk with two holes was used to know how imperfection in X-ray projection affects CT image resolution. Using various number of projections, CT image was reconstructed by filtered back projection method, and then it was investigated how many projection is required to identify the holes in different location. Two artificial holes could be differently detected according to their location in cross section of specimen. One hole in center part of specimen was identified using more than 9 radiographs, but the other one which located in outer part of cross section could not be detected until more than 36 projections were used. Even though there is data missing in outer part of cross section due to limited size of detector, the center part of CT image could be reconstructed well and the resolution of outer part became higher with increase of the number of projections. For field application, the number of projections for CT image reconstruction needs to be decided with consideration of another nondestructive testing and the location of interest.