• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.481-493
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• 2018

Ultrasonic guided waves have attracted increasing attention for non-destructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) of bridge cables. They offer advantages like single measurement, wide coverage of acoustical field, and long-range propagation capability. To design defect detection systems, it is essential to understand how guided waves propagate in cables and how to select the optimal excitation frequency and mode. However, certain cable characteristics such as multiple wires, anchorage, and polyethylene (PE) sheath increase the complexity in analyzing the guided wave propagation. In this study, guided wave modes for multi-wire bridge cables are identified by using a semi-analytical finite element (SAFE) technique to obtain relevant dispersion curves. Numerical results indicated that the number of guided wave modes increases, the length of the flat region with a low frequency of L(0,1) mode becomes shorter, and the cutoff frequency for high order longitudinal wave modes becomes lower, as the number of steel wires in a cable increases. These findings were used in design of transducers for defect detection and selection of the optimal wave mode and frequency for subsequent experiments. A magnetostrictive transducer system was used to excite and detect the guided waves. The applicability of the proposed approach for detecting and locating wire breakages was demonstrated for a cable with 37 wires. The present ultrasonic guided wave method has been found to be very responsive to the number of brokenwires and is thus capable of detecting defects with varying sizes.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.29-35
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• 2015

Pipes, commonly used in energy and petrochemical facilities, have various types of defects induced by diverse factors and this is often issued in NDE society. Ultrasonic guided wave inspection method are normally adopted to insure the healthiness of industry pipes. Recently, ultrasonic guided wave inspection is shifted to adopt arrayed probes and system. And here we developed an array guided wave ultrasonic testing system can adapt arrayed probes and focusing methods. In this paper, an array guided wave ultrasonic testing system is presented including a transmitting focusing technique and flaw signal level enhancement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.324-329
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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 of thermally damaged 2.25 Cr-lMo 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 ratio and group velocity changes was investigated. Through this study, the feasibility of ultrasonic guided wave evaluation for thermally damaged materials was explored.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1055-1065
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• 2016

An anisotropic ultrasonic transducer is proposed for Lamb wave applications, such as passive damage or impact localization based on ultrasonic guided wave theory. This transducer is made from a PMNPT single crystal, and has different piezoelectric coefficients $d_{31}$ and $d_{32}$, which are the same for the conventional piezoelectric materials, such as Lead zirconate titanate (PZT). Different piezoelectric coefficients result in directionality of guided wave generated by this transducer, in other words, it is an anisotropic ultrasonic transducer. And thus, it has different sensitivity in comparison with conventional ultrasonic transducer. The anisotropic one can provide more information related to the direction when it is used as sensors. This paper first shows its detailed properties, including analytical formulae and finite elements simulations. Then, its application is described.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.550-554
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• 2014

Regarding thin films in MEMS/NEMS structures, the exact evaluation of mechanical properties is very essential to enhance the reliability of their design and manufacturing. However, such methods as a tensile test and a resonance test, general methods to measure elastic moduli, cannot be applied to thin films since its thickness is so small. This work concerns guided wave based elastic modulus measurement method. To this end, guided wave excitation and detection system using a pulsed laser and a laser interferometry has been established. Also an elastic modulus extraction algorithm from the measured guided wave signal was developed. Finally, it was applied to actual thin film structures such as Ni-Si and Al-Si multilayers. From experimental results, we confirm that the proposed method has considerable feasibility to measure elastic properties of thin films.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.411-416
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• 2006

The critical subject of transverse crack detection in a rail head is treated in this paper. Conventional bulk wave ultrasonic techniques oftenfail because of shelling and other surface imperfections that shield the defects that lie below the shelling. A guided wave inspection technique is introduced here that can send ultrasonic energy along the rail under the shelling with a capability of finding the deleterious transverse crack defects. Dispersion curves are generated via a semi analytical finite element technique along with a hybrid guided wave finite element technique to explore the most suitable modes and frequencies for finding these defects. Sensor design and experimental feasibility experiments are also reported.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2005

Ultrasonic guided waves have been widely employed for long range inspection of structures such as plates, rods and pipes. There are numerous modes with different wave velocities, and the appropriate mode selection is one of key techniques in the application of guided waves. In the present work, phase tuning by an array transducer was applied to generate ultrasonic guided waves. For this purpose, 8-channel ultrasonic pulser/receiver and their controller which enables sequential activation of each channels with given time delay were developed. Eight transducers were fabricated in order to generate guided waves by using an array transducer. The selective tuning of wave mode can be achieved by changing the interval between elements of an array transducer.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.36-41
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• 2012

General condensers consist of many tubes supported by tube sheets and support plates to prevent the deflection of the condenser tubes. When a fluid at high pressure and temperature runs over the tubes for the purpose of transferring heat from one medium to another, the tubes vibrate and their surface comes into contact with the support plates. This vibration causes damage to the tubes, such as cracks and wear. We propose an ultrasonic guided wave technique to detect the above problems in the support plate region. In the proposed method, the ultrasonic guided wave mode, L(0,1), is excited using an internal transducer probe from a single position at the end of the tube. In this paper, we present a preliminary experimental verification using a super stainless tube and show that the defects can be discriminated from the support signals in the support region.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.126-131
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to assess the condition of composites used in aircraft under varying temperature environment with ultrasound guided wave technique. Investigation of crucial influential factor on the composite health monitoring related to aircraft operational environments such as the number of thermal cycles and temperature deviation between ground level and flight altitude has been of a great concern for aircraft safety issue. In this study, ultrasonic guided wave health monitoring scheme is proposed to evaluate composite specimens damaged with the thermal fatigue simulating aircraft operational condition. Guided wave dispersion curves are used to select right modes which show a promising sensitivity to each different thermal fatigue damage level. The present approach can be also implemented as one of on-lines health monitoring tools for aircraft.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.108-113
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• 2005

One of the recent safety issues in the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) is the cracking of the feeder pipe. Because of the limited accessibility to the cracked region and a high dose of radiation exposure, it is difficult to inspect all the pipes with the conventional ultrasonic method. In order to solve this problem, a long-range guided wave technique has been developed. A computer program to calculate the dispersion curves in the pipe was developed and the dispersion curves for the feeder pipes in PHWR plants were determined. Several longitudinal and/or flexural modes were selected from the review of the dispersion curves and an actual experiment has been carried out with the specific alignment of the piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers. They were confirmed as L(0,1)) and/or flexural modes(F(m,2)) by the short time Fourier transformation(STFT) and were sensitive to the circumferential cracks, but not to the axial cracks in the pipe. An electromagnetic acoustic transducers(EMAT) was designed and fabricated for the generation and reception of the torsional guided wave. The axial cracks were detected by a torsional mode(T(0,1)) generated by the EMAT.