• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2013

Ultrasonic guided wave techniques have been widely used for long range nondestructive detection in tube-like structures. The present paper investigates the ultrasonic linear and nonlinear parameters for evaluating the thermal damage in aluminum pipe. Specimens were subjected to thermal loading. Flexible polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) comb transducers were used to generate and receive the ultrasonic waves. The second harmonic wave generation technique was used to check the material nonlinearity change after different heat loadings. The conventional linear ultrasonic approach based on attenuation was also used to evaluate the thermal damages in specimens. The results show that the proposed experimental setup is viable to assess the thermal damage in an aluminum pipe. The ultrasonic nonlinear parameter is a promising candidate for the prediction of micro-damages in a tube-like structure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.856-859
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• 2005

The OPMT(Orientation-adjustable Patch-type Magnetostrictive Transducer) was proposed as a tool for generating and measuring the ultrasonic Lamb wave in plate type structures. This sensor has a lot of new features compared to the traditional piezo-type ultrasonic transducers. As an example, it does not need any kind of wiring for lunching or measuring ultrasonic waves. But it has also definite limitation for practical usage as a nondestructive testing tool in that it cannot help rotating the direction of ultrasonic wave manually. The idea for 'scanning OPMT' is proposed in this respect. Two kinds of basic ideas for rotating the wave direction not manually but electrically are proposed. The fabrication of the transducer and the testing for Identifying the primary characteristics are done for one of the proposed transducers. The results says that there are the possibilities as a new tool for NDE in that the proposed transducer follows well the characteristics of the traditional OPMT. But there are also the 1imitations to overcome.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.194-196
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• 2005

Ultrasonic guided waves are gaining increasing attention for the inspection of platelike and rodlike structures. At the same time, inspection methods that do not require contact with the test piece are being developed for advanced applications. This paper capitalizes on recent advances in the areas of guided wave ultrasonics and noncontact ultrasonics to demonstrate a superior method for the nondestructive detection of thinning defects simulating hidden corrosion in thin aluminum plates. The proposed approach uses EMAT(electro-magnetic acoustic transducer) for the noncontact generation and detection of guided plate waves. Interesting features in the dispersive behavior of selected guided modes are used for the detection of plate thinning. It is shown that mode cutoff measurements provide a qualitative detection of thinning defects. Measurement of the mode group velocity can be also used to quantify of thinning depth.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.833-834
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• 2012

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.221-232
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• 2008

Rock bolts have been installed into rockmass as a main support system. In order to evaluate the rock bolt integrity using non-destructive technique, the transmission method of the guided ultrasonic wave has been successfully performed. For the transmission method, however, the source for the generation o# guided ultrasonic waves should be installed at the end of the steel bar during construction of the rock bolt in the field. The purpose of this study is to suggest a reflection method that the source and the receiver are installed on the head of the steel bar. The reflection method is compared with the transmission method using non-embedded rock bolts and rock bolts embedded in concrete block. In this experiment, the piezo disc element is used as the source and the AE sensor is used as the receiver. The wavelet transform is applied to determine the energy velocity. The experimental studies show that the reflection method produces almost identical value of the transmission method, and the energy velocity increases with the defect ratio. This study suggests that the reflection method of the guided ultrasonic wave may be a suitable method fur the rock bolt integrity evaluation in the field.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2017

In the present work, the effect of hygrothermal aging on the glass fibre and epoxy matrix interface has been investigated by destructive and non-destructive techniques. The glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite laminates were prepared using Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion Molding (VARIM) technique and the specimens were immersed in simulated seawater, followed by quantitative measurement. Besides this, the tensile tests of GFRP specimens revealed a general decrease in the properties with increasing aging time. Also, exposed specimens were characterized by a non-destructive ultrasonic guided Lamb wave propagation technique. The experimental results demonstrate a correlation between the drop in ultrasonic voltage amplitude and fall in tensile strength with increasing time of immersion. Hence, the comparison of the transmitted guided wave signal of healthy vis-a-vis specimens subjected to different extents of hygrothermal aging facilitated performance evaluation of GFRP composites.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.32-37
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• 2010

This study presents the attenuation characteristics of the first guided longitudinal wave mode propagating in water-filled, buried steel pipes in order to investigate the effects of soil saturation and compaction on the attenuation patterns. For numerical calculation of attenuation, 10 different combinations of S-wave velocity, P-wave velocity, and soil densities were considered. From the attenuation dispersion curves, which were obtained using Disperse software, we determined that the attenuation decreases as saturation increases, whereas it increases as compaction increases. Over the frequency range from 0.2 to 0.4 MHz, the first longitudinal wave mode has attenuations that are relatively lower than for other ranges, is faster than the first flexural wave mode, and is sensitive to defects aligned in the axial direction. Hence, the first longitudinal wave mode over the mentioned frequency range would be the proper choice for long-range buried pipelines that transport water.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.229-251
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• 2012

Guided waves have shown a great potential for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. In contrast to traditional non-destructive testing (NDT) methodologies, a key element of SHM approaches is the high process of automation. The monitoring system should decide autonomously whether the host structure is intact or not. A basic requirement for the realization of such a system is that the sensors are permanently installed on the host structure. Thus, baseline measurements become available that can be used for diagnostic purposes, i.e., damage detection, localization, etc. This paper contributes to guided wave-based inspection in anisotropic materials for SHM purposes. Therefore, computational strategies are described for both, the solution of the complex equations for wave propagation analysis in composite materials based on exact elasticity theory and the popular global matrix method, as well as the underlying equations of two active damage localization algorithms for anisotropic structures. The result of the global matrix method is an angular and frequency dependent wave velocity characteristic that is used subsequently in the localization procedures. Numerical simulations and experimental investigations through time-delay measurements are carried out in order to validate the proposed theoretical model. An exemplary case study including the calculation of dispersion curves and damage localization is conducted on an exemplary unidirectional composite structure where the ultrasonic signals processed in the localization step are simulated with the spectral element method. The proposed study demonstrates the capabilities of the proposed algorithms for accurate damage localization in anisotropic structures.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.100-105
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• 2014

It has been previously reported that in principle sludge and blockages can be detected and even characterized by using guided ultrasonic torsional waves, based on an idealized model in which the sludge layer was simplified in terms of geometry and material properties. The work revealed that the presence of a layer inside a pipe scatters the guided wave propagating in the pipe and both the reflection and transmission of the guided wave can be used to effectively detect and characterize the layer. This paper proceeds the work by taking into account more realistic sludge characteristics, including irregular circumferential profiles of the sludge layer and imperfect bonding state between the sludge and the pipe. The influence of these issues is investigated to identify the critical factors that influence the detection and characterization capability of the two measurements.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.142-150
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• 2004

A preliminary study of the behavior of ultrasonic guided wave mode in a pipe using a comb transducer for maintenance inspection of power plant facilities has been verified experimentally. The mode identification has been carried out in a pipe using the time-frequency analysis methods such as the wavelet transform(WT) and the short time Fourier transform (STFT), compared with theoretically calculated group velocity dispersion curves for longitudinal and flexural modes. The results are in good agreement with analytical predictions and show the effectiveness of using the time-frequency analysis method to identify the individual modes. It was found out that the longitudinal mode(0,1) is less affected by mode conversion compared with the other modes. Therefore, L(0,1) is selected as an optimal mode for the evaluation of the surface defect in a pipe.