Dong-Jin Yoon

AE characteristic for monitoring of fatigue crack in steel bridge members

Acoustic emission technique was employed for the monitoring of crack activity in both steel bridge members and laboratory specimen. Laboratory experiment was carried out to identify AE characteristics of fatigue cracks for compact tension specimen. The relationship between a stress intensity factor and AE signals activity as well as conventional AE parameter analysis was discussed. A field test was also conducted on a railway bridge, which contain several fatigue cracks. Crack activities were investigated while in service with strain measurement. From the results, in the laboratory tests, the features of three parameters such as the length of crack growth, the AE energy, and the cumulative AE events, showed the almost same trend in their increase as the number of fatigue cycle increased. From the comparisons of peak amplitude and AE energy with stress intensity factor, it was verified that the higher stress intensity factors generated AE signals with higher peak amplitude and a large number of AE counts. In the field test, real crack propagation signals were captured and the crack activity was verified in two cases.

Source Location on Full-Scale Wind Turbine Blade Using Acoustic Emission Energy Based Signal Mapping Method

Acoustic emission(AE) has emerged as a powerful nondestructive tool to detect any further growth or expansion of preexisting defects or to characterize failure mechanisms. Recently, this kind of technique, that is an in-situ monitoring of inside damages of materials or structures, becomes increasingly popular for monitoring the integrity of large structures like a huge wind turbine blade. In this study, the activities of AE signals generated from external artificial sources was evaluated and located by new developed signal mapping source location method and this test is conducted by 750 kW full-scale blade. And a new source location method was applied to assess the damage in the wind turbine blade during step-by-step static load test. In this static loading test, we have used a full scale blade of 100 kW in capacity. The results show that the acoustic emission activities give a good agreement with the stress distribution and damage location in the blade. Finally, the applicability of the new source location method was confirmed by comparison of the result of source location and experimental damage location.

AE Characteristics of Fatigue Crack Opening and Closure in SWS 490B and Al 7075-T6 Alloy

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of AE activities in the crack opening and closure during the fatigue test. The laboratory experiments for various materials and test conditions were carrie out to identify AE characteristics of fatigue crack propagation. Compact tension specimens of SWS 490B and Al 7075-T6 alloy were prepared for fatigue test. AE activities were analyzed based on the phase of the loading cycle. In case of SWS 490B, the most of AE was generated when the crack began opening and the crack closed fully, whereas a few in the full opening of the crack. On the other hand, in case of Al 7075-T6, a distinct AE activity was observed during crack opening process. AE activity in the peak loading of cycle was different with each specimen. However, in the same material, AE activity was not affected by the change of cyclic frequency (0.1, 0.2, 1.0 ㎐). It was found that AE activities during crack opening and closure depend on material properties such as micro-structure, yield strength and elongation.

Assessment of the integrity of concrete bridge structures by acoustic emission technique

This study was aimed at developing a new method for assessing the integrity of concrete structures. Especially acoustic emission technique was used in carrying out both laboratory experiment and field application. From the previous laboratory study, we confirmed that AE analysis provided a promising approach for estimating the level of damage and distress in concrete structures. The Felicity ratio, one of the key parameter for assessing damage, exhibits a favorable correlation with the overall damage level. The total number of AE events under stepwise cyclic loading also showed a good agreement with the damage level. In this study, a new suggested technique was applied to several concrete bridges in Korea in order to verify the applicability in field. The AE response was analyzed to obtain key parameters such as the total number and rate of AE events, AE parameter analysis for each event, and the characteristic features of the waveform as well as Felicity ratio analysis. Stepwise loading-unloading procedure for AE generation was introduced in field test by using each different weight of vehicle. According to the condition of bridge, for instance new or old bridge, AE event rate and AE generation behavior indicated many different aspects. The results showed that the suggested analyzing method would be a promising approach for assessing the integrity of concrete structures.