| Research projects | ||||||
| Principal Investigator | Project name | Funding Agency | Project No. | Period | Abstract | keywords |
| Chih-Hung Chiang | Integrating 3D building models and infrared thermal images for structural defect detection (I)(II)(III) | National Science and Technology Council | MOST 108-2221-E-324-004- | 2023/08/01~2022/07/31，2022/08/01~2021/07/31，2019/08/01~2020/07/31 | Fiber reinforced polymer composite (CFRP or GFRP) materials have widespread applications in both component fabrication and repair of damaged structures. owever, new materials also present new challenges to structural integrity and nondestructive valuation. The transient heat transfer within a layered structure can be modelled efficiently using the thermal quadrupole methods. Such numerical simulations would contribute to effective experimental design for thermography nspection applications of composite materials. Current research is part of such effort that focuses on the parametric study on both a two layer model and a four-layer model. The variation of amplitude curves agrees with the lateral position of the interfacial discontinuity in general. The sudden increase in the phase value distinctively indicates the end point of the same discontinuity. Hence the lateral location of an embedded interfacial discontinuity can be readily identified from the Laplace surface temperature. The layer thickness does not have significant effect on the general trend observed in the parametric analysis presented in this work. The advantage of the numerical modelling of layered structures using thermal quadrupoles lies in that thermal quadrupoles can be easily extended to multiple layers containing internal anomaly between different layers. | composite laminates, thermal quadrupoles, passive thermography, transient analysis of heat transfer, nondestructive testing |
| Chih-Hung Chiang | Application of automatic detection technology combined with NDT in health diagnosis of civil structures | National Science and Technology Council | MOST 104-2632-E-324-001- | 2015/8/1-2016/7/31 | The ever-increasing demand on safety and welfare of the modern society calls for more attention to health diagnosis of civil structures. NDT techniques have been successfully applied to health inspection and monitoring of buildings, bridges, pavement, tunnels, and so forth. However most of NDT applications rely on time-consuming manual operation. Hence developing robotic inspection techniques will be the main focus of this joint proposal. Aspects including the automated inspection of building facades and exterior attachment, automated inspection of layered structures, modular vibration monitoring of underground structures, and non-contact optical inspection of structural deformation are explored. Current study aims to develop automatic nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques based on the research capacity of Department of Construction Engineering and Center for NDT, Chaoyang University of Technology. A team of NDT researchers and civil engineers will join forces with two specialists of information/communication technology in this endeavor. The main outcome of this research includes data fusion techniques for thermal and optical images, mobile elastic-wave-inspection devices, UAV-based building inspection techniques, and multi-modal diagnosis incorporated building/structure information models that shall be invaluable to preventative maintenance of buildings and other civil structures. | Nondestructive testing; Automatic inspection; Structural health diagnosis; Exterior attachment |
| Chih-Hung Chiang | Non-destructive testing and dynamic monitoring of tower columns and chimneys | National Science and Technology Council | NSC 102-2221-E-324-015- | 2013/08/01~2014/07/31 | The structural integrity is of great importance for maintaining the safety, reliability, and availability of utility tower structures. Wind turbine towers and industrial chimneys are in need of condition monitoring so as to lower the cost of unexpected maintenance. Technicians who perform visual inspection are at high risk because of the height of towers. Current research aims to apply remote inspection and monitoring techniques to tower structures so as to reduce the risk of inspection. Remote microwave interferometry and structural dynamic analyses have been explored in this respect. The results indicated that factors affecting the dominant frequencies of the tower include wind gust and possibly the blade movement. The lower part of the tower is sensitive to the change of stiffness as the decrease in dominant frequency indicates based on numerical simulation. Work in progress includes additional measurements of wind turbine towers using microwave interferometry and reassigned time-frequency representations of measurement data. The final outcome should provide more insight to the structural vibration of towers and develop the remote monitoring procedures and nondestructive evaluation techniques for local utility tower structures in Taiwan. | tower; microwave interferometry; dynamic analysis; spectral finite element methods |
| Chih-Hung Chiang | Research on Quantitative Analysis Technology of Thermal Imaging Non-destructive Detection | National Science and Technology Council | NSC 101-2221-E-324-023- | 2012/08/01~2013/10/31 | Surface temperature distribution can be detected using infrared cameras. The processing and analyses of thermal images are called thermography. Thermography can be applied to nondestructive testing of construction materials and civil structures. The main outcome of the current research includes (1) developing computer software for defect detection, image synthesis, and quantitative analyses of thermal images; (2) applying the underlying techniques to inspect both lining of highway tunnel and strengthening of concrete building; (3) expanding the database of thermal images for future research and applications. The key findings on image econstruction and feature enhancement have been included in this report. | thermal imaging method; time-domain synthetic image; image reconstruction; non-destructive testing |