Papers by Author: Kil Sung Lee

Abstract: Carbon/carbon(C/C) composite materials have obvious advantages over conventional materials, which consist of carbon fibers embedded in a carbon matrix. It’s low density, high thermal conductivity and excellent mechanical properties at elevated temperatures make it an ideal material for aerospace applications especially aircraft brake disks. Because of permeation of coupling medium such as water, it is desirable to perform contact-less nondestructive evaluation to assess material properties and part homogeneity. In this work, a C/C composite material was characterized with non-contact and contact ultrasonic methods using automated acquisition scanner. . Due to the acoustic impedance mismatch found between most materials and air, a major limitation for air-coupled transducers, through-transmission mode was performed. Especially ultrasonic images and velocities for C/C composite disk brake were measured and found to be consistent to some degree with the non-contact and contact ultrasonic measurement methods. 400 kHz frequency through-transmission scans based on both amplitude and time-of-flight of the ultrasonic pulse were used for mapping out the inhomogeneity in material property. Non-contact measured results were compared with those obtained by the motorized system using contact drycoupling ultrasonics and through transmission method in immersion. Results using a proposed peak-delay measurement non-contact method corresponded well to the ultrasonic velocities of the contact pulse overlap method.

Abstract: Currently, the most important objective in designing automobiles is to focus on environment-friendly and safety performance aspects. For the environment-friendly aspect, the issues relate to the shift towards lightweight automobile production, for improving fuel-efficiency and reducing exhaust fumes. However, in contrast, the issues of the safety performance such as crash safety, comfort level and muti-functional programs demand increase of automobile’s weight. Therefore, the design of automobile should be inclined towards the safety aspects, but at the same time, it also should consider reducing the structural weight of an automobile. In this study, for lightweight design of side member, CFRP side member was manufactured from CFRP unidirectional prepreg sheet. The stacking condition related to the energy absorption of composite materials, is being considered as an issue for the structural efficiency. Therefore, the axial collapse tests were performed with change of the stacking condition, such as fiber orientation angle and interlaminar number. The collapse modes and energy absorption characteristics were analyzed according to fiber orientation angle and interlaminar number.

Abstract: Owing to the advantages associated with their very large strength-to-weight and stiffnessto- weight ratios, composite materials are attractive for a wide range of applications. Increasingly, high performance engineering structures are being built with critical structural components made from composite materials. In particular, the importance of carbon-fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) has been generally recognized in both space and civil aircraft industries, and CFRP composite laminates are widely used. It is very important to detect fiber orientation error in orthotropic composite laminates because the layup of a CFRP composite laminates affects the properties of the laminate, including stiffness, strength and thermal behavior. In this study, a new approach was investigated on detection of fiber orientation with using two longitudinal and a shear wave ultrasonic transducers for the orthotropic composite laminates. During testing, the most significant problem is that the couplant conditions do not remain the same because of changing the viscosity of the couplant. Therefore, making a design for generating shear wave with longitudinal transducers would greatly aid in alleviating the couplant problem. A pyramid with an isosceles triangle was made of aluminum in order to generate shear waves using two longitudinal transducers based on ultrasonic-polarized mechanism. It is found that the shear wave was very sensitive to fiber of CFRP composite. Finally, a CFRP composite material was nondestructively characterized in order to measure fiber orientation error area using automated data acquisition C-scan system.

Abstract: The strength members, such as front-end side members, are subjected to axial compressive and bending load during collision. Therefore, it is important to consider energy absorption by the axial compression and the bending for design of effective strength members. And at the same time, it also should consider reducing weight of the members. In this study, CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics) side members with single-hat-section shape were manufactured. The axial compression and the bending tests were performed for the members using universal testing machine, and the axial compression and the bending characteristics were analyzed. Stacking condition related to the energy absorption of composite materials is being considered as an issue for the structural efficiency. So the energy absorption of the member under the axial compressive load and the bending load were experimentally investigated.

Abstract: Currently, stacking condition related to the energy absorption of composite materials is being considered as an issue for the structural efficiency and safety of automobiles, aerospace vehicles, trains, ships even elevators during collision. In particular, CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastics) composite materials have found wide applicability because of their inherent design flexibility and improved material properties. The most important objective in designing automobiles is currently to focus on environment-friendly aspect and safety performance aspect. Therefore, the designing automobile should be more concerned on the aspect of securing safety performance, but at the same time, it also should consider reducing weight of automobile structural member. In this study, CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics) side members with single-hat-section shaped were manufactured. The axial static collapse tests were performed for the members using universal testing machine, and the collapse mode and energy absorption characteristics were analyzed according to stacking condition such as fiber orientation angle and shape of the section.

Abstract: Air-coupled ultrasound is a non-contact technique and has obvious advantages over water-coupled experimentation. Especially, wood materials are very sensitive to water and inspection without any coupling medium of a liquid is really needed to wood materials due to the permeation of coupling medium such as water. In this work, it is desirable to perform contact-less nondestructive evaluation to assess wood material homogeneity. A wood material was nondestructively characterized with non-contact and contact modes to measure ultrasonic velocity using automated data acquisition software. We have utilized a proposed peak-delay measurement method. Also through transmission mode was performed because of the main limitation for aircoupled transducers, which is the acoustic impedance mismatch between most materials and air. The variation of ultrasonic velocity was found to be consistent to some degree with those in infiltrated area for air-coupled and conventional scan images. Through-transmission scans for aircoupled and conventional UT were used based on both amplitude and time-of-flight images. Finally, results using a peak-delay measurement method well somewhat corresponded to ultrasonic velocities of the pulse overlap method.

Abstract: Since layup orientation of the laminates greatly influences its properties, an NDE technique for layup orientation determination would be very beneficial. It is desirable to perform contact-less nondestructive evaluation to assess material properties and defects of composites because of permeation of coupling medium such as water. An ultrasonic technique would be very useful, which could be used to test the part after and before curing laminates and requires less time than the optical test. First of all, conventional ultrasonic experimentations were conducted using water as a transmitting medium. In contrast, air-coupled ultrasound is non-contact and has clear advantages over water-coupled testing. Therefore ultrasonic systems for air-coupled and conventional ultrasound were set out for different measurement modalities for acquiring ultrasonic signals as a function of in-plane azimuthal angle. Firstly, a manual scanner was built for making transmission measurements using a pair of normal-incidence shear wave transducers to find the effect of fiber misorientations of orthotropic composite laminates. With the transmitter and receiver on the same side of a laminates, Lamb waves were generated and used for the amplitude magnitude. As a result, it was confirmed that the influence of fiber direction in the laminates could be detected by the non-contacting or contacting inspection from one-side and the detectability was improved by using shaped tube for reducing the specular reflection on transmitting. Furthermore, a vector decomposition model was utilized for lay-up error of the orthotropic laminates. Finally, aircoupled results well corresponded somewhat to those of contact ultrasonic examination in the orthotropic laminates.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop lightweight hat shaped section side members which absorb the most of the energy during the front-end collision of vehicle. The hybrid side member was manufactured by combination of aluminum and CFRP. An aluminum or CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics) member is representative lightweight materials but its axial collapse mechanism is different from each other. The aluminum member absorbs energy by stable plastic deformation, while the CFRP member absorbs energy by unstable brittle failure with higher specific strength and stiffness than those in the aluminum member. Based on the respective collapse characteristics of CFRP side and aluminum members, the hybrid side members were tested on the axial collapse loads to get a synergy effect when the member is combined with the advantages of each members, such as energy absorption by the stable folding deformation of the aluminum member and by the high specific strength and stiffness of the CFRP member. Energy absorption capability and collapse mode of the hybrid side members were analyzed.

Abstract: In this research, we proposed nondestructive evaluation method of a flaw in an optical glass lens by resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS). An optical glass lens is used for improving signal coupling between fibers, emitters and detectors. The shape of optical glass lens is an aspherical lens with 3mm in length and 6.35 mm in diameter. For nondestructive evaluation of an aspherical lens, we made of the measuring system by RUS. For flaw evaluation by the RUS to verify the data obtained from the experiment, we carried out simulation by explicit finite elements method, and compared the experimental results with simulation results. Also, we compared the resonant frequencies of specimens with some defect with those of acceptable specimens. The histogram drawn from these data and the available resonance mode surveyed were used to classify the acceptable specimens in the plant.

Abstract: A nondestructive technique would be very beneficial, which could be used to test the part before (uncured) and after curing CF/Epoxy. A new method for nondestructively determining the ply layup in a composite laminate is presented. The method employs a normal-incidence longitudinal ultrasound to perform C-scan of ply interfaces of the laminate, and extracts fiber orientation information from the ultrasonic reflection in the laminate. Using two-dimensional spatial Fourier transform, interface C-scan images were transformed into quantitatively angular distribution plots to show the fiber orientation information therein and to determine the orientation of the ply. In order to develop these methods into practical inspection tools, an automated system using a motor has been developed for different measurement modalities for acquiring ultrasonic effects of ply-layup error. Therefore, it is found that the efficiency of developed system shows between the practical testing and model in characterizing cured/uncured ply-layup error of the laminates. A C-scan image of a ply interface seem to have the ply-layup error information of the two neighboring plies of CF/Epoxy composite laminates.