• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.6399-6405
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• 2014

An external overload or impact is an important factor affecting the safety of large-scale structures. The proposal of this paper is the development of a system for detecting overload and impulse using a single PVDF film sensor. In large-scale structures, the load causes the structure to be deformed and the impulse generates vibration on the structure. Generally, low frequency deformation or bending of a structure is measured with a strain gauge and the high frequency vibration is detected by an accelerometer. On the other hand, a single sensor that can detect both deformation and vibration has not been developed. In this study, the development of a detection system integrated with a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film sensor, amplifier, and software was attempted to monitor deformation and impact through a single sensor. The system was verified by the possibility of detecting overload and impulse, and the two filtered signals of the PVDF were compared with a conventional strain gauge and an accelerometer.

• Composites Research
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.429-434
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• 2018

We investigate strain transmissions of a surface bonded distributed optical fiber sensor considering strain variation according to positions. We first derive a strain transmission ratio depending on a wavelength of a strain distribution of the host structure from an analysis model. The strain transmission ratio is compared with numerical results obtained from the finite element method using ABAQUS. We find that the analytical results agree well with the numerical results. The strain transmission ratio is a function of a wavelength, i.e. the strain transmission ratio decreases (increases) as the wavelength of the host strain decreases (increases). Therefore, if an arbitrary strain distribution containing various wavelengths is given to a host structure, a distorted strain distribution will be observed in the distributed optical fiber sensor compare to that of the host structure, because each wavelength shows different strain transmission ratio. The strain transmission ratio derived in this study will be useful for accurately identifying the host strain distribution based on the signal of a distributed optical fiber sensor.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.75-88
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• 2022

Engineering structures in operation essentially belong to time-varying or nonlinear structures and the resultant response signals are usually non-stationary. For such time-varying structures, it is of great importance to extract time-dependent dynamic parameters from non-stationary response signals, which benefits structural health monitoring, safety assessment and vibration control. However, various traditional signal processing methods are unable to extract the embedded meaningful information. As a newly developed technique, variational mode decomposition (VMD) shows its superiority on signal decomposition, however, it still suffers two main problems. The foremost problem is that the number of modal components is required to be defined in advance. Another problem needs to be addressed is that VMD cannot effectively separate non-stationary signals composed of closely spaced or overlapped modes. As such, a new method named generalized adaptive variational modal decomposition (GAVMD) is proposed. In this new method, the number of component signals is adaptively estimated by an index of mean frequency, while the generalized demodulation algorithm is introduced to yield a generalized VMD that can decompose mode overlapped signals successfully. After that, synchrosqueezing wavelet transform (SWT) is applied to extract instantaneous frequencies (IFs) of the decomposed mono-component signals. To verify the validity and accuracy of the proposed method, three numerical examples and a steel cable with time-varying tension force are investigated. The results demonstrate that the proposed GAVMD method can decompose the multi-component signal with overlapped modes well and its combination with SWT enables a successful IF extraction of each individual component.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.237-250
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• 2022

Structural health monitoring (SHM) plays an important role in ensuring the safety and functionality of critical civil infrastructure. In recent years, numerous researchers have conducted studies to develop computer vision and machine learning techniques for SHM purposes, offering the potential to reduce the laborious nature and improve the effectiveness of field inspections. However, high-quality vision data from various types of damaged structures is relatively difficult to obtain, because of the rare occurrence of damaged structures. The lack of data is particularly acute for fatigue crack in steel bridge girder. As a result, the lack of data for training purposes is one of the main issues that hinders wider application of these powerful techniques for SHM. To address this problem, the use of synthetic data is proposed in this article to augment real-world datasets used for training neural networks that can identify fatigue cracks in steel structures. First, random textures representing the surface of steel structures with fatigue cracks are created and mapped onto a 3D graphics model. Subsequently, this model is used to generate synthetic images for various lighting conditions and camera angles. A fully convolutional network is then trained for two cases: (1) using only real-word data, and (2) using both synthetic and real-word data. By employing synthetic data augmentation in the training process, the crack identification performance of the neural network for the test dataset is seen to improve from 35% to 40% and 49% to 62% for intersection over union (IoU) and precision, respectively, demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed approach.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.968-980
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• 2023

The dynamic structural responses are sensitive to the time-frequency content of seismic waves, and seismic input motions in time-history analysis are usually required to be compatible with design response spectra according to nuclear codes. In order to generate spectra-compatible input motions while maintaining the intrinsic non-stationarity of seismic waves, an improved time-domain approach is proposed in this paper. To maintain the nonstationary characteristics of the given seismic waves, a new time-frequency envelope function is constructed using the Hilbert amplitude spectrum. Based on the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) obtained from given seismic waves through variational mode decomposition, a new corrective time history is constructed to locally modify the given seismic waves. The proposed corrective time history and time-frequency envelope function are unique for each earthquake records as they are extracted from the given seismic waves. In addition, a dimension reduction iterative technique is presented herein to simultaneously superimpose corrective time histories of all the damping ratios at a specific frequency in the time domain according to optimal weights, which are found by the genetic algorithm (GA). Examples are presented to show the capability of the proposed approach in generating spectra-compatible time histories, especially in maintaining the nonstationary characteristics of seismic records. And numerical results reveal that the modified time histories generated by the proposed method can obtain similar dynamic behaviors of AP1000 nuclear power plant with the natural seismic records. Thus, the proposed method can be efficiently used in the design practices.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.283-299
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• 2023

Structural stability of floating platforms has long since been a crucial issue in the field of marine engineering. Excessive motions would not only deteriorate the operating conditions but also seriously impact the safety, service life, and production efficiency. In recent decades, several control devices have been proposed to reduce unwanted motions, and an attractive one is the tuned heave plate (THP). However, the THP system may reduce or even lose its effectiveness when it is mistuned due to the shift of dominant wave frequency. In the present study, a novel adaptive tuned heave plate (ATHP) is proposed based on inerter by adjusting its inertance, which allows to overcome the limitation of the conventional THP and realize adaptations to the dominant wave frequencies in real time. Specifically, the analytical model of a representative semisubmersible platform (SSP) equipped with an ATHP is created, and the equations of motion are formulated accordingly. Two optimization strategies (i.e., J₁ and J₂ optimizations) are developed to determine the optimum design parameters of ATHP. The control effectiveness of the optimized ATHP is then examined in the frequency domain by comparing to those without control and controlled by the conventional THP. Moreover, parametric analyses are systematically performed to evaluate the influences of the pre-specified frequency ratio, damping ratio, heave plate sizes, peak periods and wave heights on the performance of ATHP. Furthermore, a Simulink model is also developed to examine the control performance of ATHP in the time domain. It is demonstrated that the proposed ATHP could adaptively adjust the optimum inertance-to-mass ratio by tracking the dominant wave frequencies in real time, and the proposed system shows better control performance than the conventional THP.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.274-287
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• 2024

Chemiresistors play a crucial role in numerous research fields, including environmental monitoring, healthcare, and industrial safety, owing to their ability to detect and quantify gases with high sensitivity and specificity. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the recent advancements in photoactivated chemiresistors and emphasizes their potential for the development of highly sensitive, selective, and low-power gas sensors. This study explores a range of structural configurations of sensing materials, from zero-dimensional quantum dots to three-dimensional, porous nanostructures and examines the impact of these designs on the photoactivity, gas interactions, and overall sensor performance-including gas responses and recovery rates. Particular focus is placed on metal-oxide semiconductors and the integration of ultraviolet micro-light emitting diodes, which have gained attention as key components for next-generation sensing technologies owing to their superior photoactivity and energy efficiency. By addressing existing technical challenges, such as limited sensitivity, particularly at room temperature (~22℃), this paper outlines future research directions, highlighting the potential of photoactivated chemiresistors in developing high-performance, ultralow-power gas sensors for the Internet of Things and other advanced applications.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.1-8
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• 2019

The primary purposes of this study are to understand a fundamental effects of electro-deposition on reinforcing steel in saturated Ca(OH)2 electrolyte, and evaluate the corrosion rates of rebars under cyclic 3wt.%NaCl immersion and dry corrosion environment. The three cement mortar specimens with cover thickness 5, 10 and 30mm, were prepared in the experiment. To monitor the corrosion rates of rebars in mortar, the three cement mortar specimens were exposed to 110 wet-drying cycles(8-hour-immersion in 3wt.%NaCl and 16-hour-drying in a room temperature) in the laboratory. During the wet-dry cycles, the polarization resistance, Rp, and solution resistance, Rs, were continuously measured. The instantaneous corrosion rates of rebars on the effect of electro-depositing with sat. Ca(OH)2 electrolyte were estimated from obtained R-1p and degrees of wetness were estimated from Rs values. From the experimental results, the corrosion rates of rebars were greatly accelerated by wet/dry cycles. During the mortars exposed to drying condition, the large increases in the corrosion rates were showed at all rebar surfaces in three mortar specimen, attributed from the accelerated reduction rates of dissolved oxygen in drying process. However, the corrosion rates on rebar surface electrochemically deposited with sat. Ca(OH)2 electrolyte showed the clear decreases, caused by calcium deposits in the porous rust layer.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.72 no.5
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• pp.643-652
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• 2019

Protection of cultural heritage and carrying it to the future are at the top of the significant topics of research and implementation in engineering in the 21st century. There are several historical structures in the district of Ahlat located in the east of Turkey on the Lake Van Basin that has harbored many civilizations. Some of such works are the gravestones that are found in the Ahlat Seljuk Cemetery, which is the oldest and largest cemetery in the district. This study firstly provides information about the Ahlat Seljuk Cemetery and the gravestones found in it. Observation-based structural analyses were carried out on these gravestones that are found in this area that are known to have belonged to different civilizations based on their physical and constructional characteristics. These stones were built out of Ahlat stone as single pieces. Information is provided on the damages that have occurred on the gravestones in time and their causes. In general, losses of mass, abrasions, separations, collapses and calcifications due to natural conditions, as well as vegetative formations, were observed in the gravestones. To provide an example of other gravestones within the context of the study, the gravestone that is known to belong to the person named Nureddin Ebu Hasan was selected. As a result of the modeling that was carried out for this gravestone by using the finite elements method, modal analyses were carried out. With these analyses, for the gravestone, period, effective mass participation rates and stress values were calculated. The stress values that were obtained in this study were compared to the material safety stress values that were obtained in previous studies. Additionally, QR code application was created for the gravestone that was selected as an example in the study, and information on this gravestone was transferred to an electronic environment. The QR code application includes different language options, visuals of the gravestone and information on the gravestone. The QR application was also supported with a video of the cemetery where the gravestone is located. With this application, access to information about gravestones will be possible by using tablets and smartphones. With a QR code to be created for each gravestone, these gravestones will obtain identity cards.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.543-550
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• 2018

The rapid growth of IoT technology induced by the fourth industrial revolution has resulted in research into various types of wireless sensors, and applications based on this technology are prevalent in many areas. However, among the various sites where this technology is used, railway bridges and tunnels with lengths of tens of kilometers have problems with data acquisition, due to the signal noise induced by the long distance measurement and EMI induced by the high voltage power feeding system, when conventional electric sensors are used. To overcome these problems, many studies on fiber optic sensors have been conducted as a substitute for the conventional electric sensors. However, restrictions on the types of fiber optic sensors have limited their application in railways. For this reason, a hybrid measurement system with IoT based wireless data communication, in which both electric and fiber optic sensors can be applied simultaneously, has been developed. In this study, in order to evaluate the applicability of the hybrid measurement system developed in the previous study, a real-time test for 4 types of measurement environments, which reflect possible railway sites, is performed. As a result, it was confirmed that the signals from both the electric and fiber optic sensors, which were acquired at a remote area in real-time, showed good agreement with each other and that this measurement system has the potential to handle sensors with a sampling rate of 2.5 kHz. In the future, it is expected that the IoT-based hybrid measurement system will contribute to the improvement of structural safety by enabling real-time structural health monitoring when applied to various measurement sites.