• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.232-240
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• 2013

This paper presents recent advances in damage visualization algorithms of laser generated ultrasonic propagation imaging(UPI) system. An effective damage evaluation method is required to extract correct information from raw data to properly characterize anomalies present in structure. A temporal-reference free imaging system provides easy and rapid defect inspection capability with less computational complexity. In this paper a number of methods such as ultrasonic wave propagation imaging(UWPI), anomalous wave propagation imaging(AWPI), ultrasonic spectral imaging(USI), wavelet ultrasonic propagation imaging(WUPI), variable time window amplitude mapping(VTWAM), time point adjustment(TPA), time of flight and amplitude mapping(ToF&Amp) and ultrasonic wavenumber imaging(UWI) are discussed with instances of successful implementation on various structures.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.564-572
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• 2012

Harmonic imaging is introduced in the present article and its principle and physical characteristics is described in contrast to conventional ultrasonic imaging. The principle of the conventional image which uses ultrasonic echoes reflected at the interfaces between tissues is presented, and the nonlinear ultrasonic propagation which results in harmonic components is conceptually described. The pulse inversion technique which effectively extracts the harmonic components from the ultrasonic echo signals is introduced, and the advantages of the constructed harmonic images are summarized comparing with those of conventional ultrasonic images. The harmonic images are classified according to the mechanism of harmonic production, and the typical harmonic images obtained from patients are presented in contrast to the corresponding sonograms. Clinical significance and prospects of harmonic imaging and the future research areas are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.84-90
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• 2017

An ultrasonic synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) using a root mean square (RMS) velocity model is proposed for pulse-echo immersion testing to improve the computational efficiency. Considering the immersion ultrasonic testing of a steel block as an example, three kinds of imaging were studied (B-Scan, SAFT imaging based on ray tracing technology and RMS velocity). The experimental results show that two kinds of SAFT imaging have almost the same imaging performance, while the efficiency of RMS velocity SAFT imaging is almost 25 times greater than the SAFT based on Snell's law.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.283-292
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• 2009

Laser-based ultrasonic sensing requires the probe with fixed fecal length, but this requirement is not essential in laser-based ultrasonic generation. Based on this fact, we designed a pulsed laser-based ultrasonic wave propagation imaging (UWPI) system with a tilting mirror system for rapid scanning of target, and an in-line band-pass filtering capable of ultrasoaic mode selection. 1D-temporal averaging, 2D-spatial averaging, and 3D-data structure building algorithms were developed far clearer results allowing fur higher damage detectability. The imaging results on a flat stainless steel plate were presented in movie and snapshot formats which showed the propagation of ultrasound visible as a concentric wavefield emerging from the location of an ultrasonic sensor. A hole in the plate with a diameter of 1 mm was indicated by the scattering wavefields. The results showed that this robust UWPI system is independent of focal length and reference data requirements.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1460-1471
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• 2024

2D and 3D ultrasonic imaging has so far not been demonstrated in pure molten lead in the open literature. In this study the development of such an ultrasonic device for imaging is outlined and results from testing at 380 ℃ in lead are presented. The main difficulties were found to be achieving then maintaining suitable wetting while ensuring suitable durability of the device, both due to the harsh nature of molten lead and the elevated temperatures. The successful detection and imaging (2D and 3D), of differently shaped targets, where the features were above the size of the transmitted ultrasound beam was demonstrated.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.17-22
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• 2008

Recent developments in contactless, air-coupled sensing of seismic and ultrasonic waves in concrete structures are presented. Contactless sensing allows for rapid, efficient and consistent data collection over a large volume of material. Two inspection applications are discussed: air-coupled impact-echo scanning of concrete structures using seismically generated waves, and air-coupled imaging of internal damages in concrete using ultrasonic tomography. The first application aims to locate and characterize shallow delamination defects within concrete bridge decks. Impact-echo method is applied to scan defected concrete slabs using air coupled sensors. Next, efforts to apply air-coupled ultrasonic tomography to concrete damage imaging are discussed. Preliminary results are presented for air-coupled ultrasonic tomography applied to solid elements to locate internal defects. The results demonstrate that, with continued development, air-coupled ultrasonic tomography may provide improved evaluation of unseen material defects within structures.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.467-475
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• 2016

Ultrasonic propagation imaging (UPI) has shown great potential for detection of impairments in complex structures and can be used in wide range of non-destructive evaluation and structural health monitoring applications. The software implementation of such algorithms showed a tendency in time-consumption with increment in scan area because the processor shares its resources with a number of programs running at the same time. This issue was addressed by using field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) that is a dedicated processing solution and used for high speed signal processing algorithms. For this purpose, we need an independent and flexible block of logic which can be used with continuously evolvable hardware based on FPGA. In this paper, we developed an FPGA-based ultrasonic propagation imaging system, where FPGA functions for both data acquisition system and real-time ultrasonic signal processing. The developed UPI system using FPGA board provides better cost-effectiveness and resolution than digitizers, and much faster signal processing time than CPU which was tested using basic ultrasonic propagation algorithms such as ultrasonic wave propagation imaging and multi-directional adjacent wave subtraction. Finally, a comparison of results for processing time between a CPU-based UPI system and the novel FPGA-based system were presented to justify the objective of this research.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1418-1425
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• 2014

In ultrasonic medical imaging, spatial compounding of images is a technique where ultrasonic beam is steered to examine patient tissues in multiple angles. In the conventional ultrasonic diagnostic imaging, the steering of the ultrasonic beam is achieved electronically using the phased array transducer elements. In this paper, a spatial compounding approach is presented where the ultrasonic probe element is rotated mechanically and the beam steering is achieved mechanically. In the spatial compounding, target position is computed using the value of the rotation axis and the transducer array angular position. However, in the process of the rotation mechanism construction and the control system there arises the inevitable uncertainties in these values. These geometric parameter errors result in the target position error, and the consequence is a blurry compounded image. In order to reduce these target position errors, we present a spatial compounding scheme where error correcting transformation matrices are computed and applied to the raw images before spatial compounding to reduce the blurriness in the compounded image. The proposed scheme is illustrated using phantom and live scan images of human knee, and it is shown that the blurriness is effectively reduced.

• Composites Research
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.288-292
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• 2016

In this paper, a novel ultrasonic propagation imaging system, called a full-field pulse-echo ultrasonic propagation imaging (FF PE UPI) system is introduced. The system nondestructively inspected targets with two-axis translation stage. The coincident laser beams for ultrasonic sensing and generation are scanned and pulse-echo mode laser ultrasounds are captured. This procedure makes it possible to generate full-field ultrasound in through-the-thickness direction as large as the scan area. Structural inspection results in the form of full-field ultrasonic wave propagation videos are introduced, which are painted sandwich control surfaces. In addition, the inspection results of FF PE UPI system are compared with conventional ultrasonic testing methods such as waterjet and portable C-scan.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.33-41
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• 2009

A multilevel acoustic Fresnel lens (MAFL) for the ultrasonic imaging transducer of which center frequency is approximately 5.MHz was newly designed and fabricated. The phase level of the lens was 64, and the focal length and the aperture width were 30.mm and 11.mm, respectively. The characteristics of impulse response, acoustic field and imaging performance of the transducer attached the lens were compared with the transducer attached a conventional refraction type acoustic lens (RAL). The results show that the center frequency, the loop sensitivity, and the focal depth of the MAFL transducer were higher or larger than those of the RAL transducer by approximately 0.2.MHz, 1.4.dB, and 2.mm, respectively. Consequently, it was shown that the brighter acoustic images with higher lateral resolution and the increased imaging performance for deep targets can be obtained by using the MAFL transducer.