• The Journal of Korean Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapy
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.57-63
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• 2012

Background: The number of old people with degenerative osteoarthritis one of the chronic disease, were constantly increased. Many researchers have made a great effort to verify the effects of ultrasound and laser therapy in degenerative osteoarthritis treatment. This study applied ultrasound-laser integration therapy on knee joint degenerative osteoarthritis and compared its effect with ultrasound and laser. Methods: We assigned 60 patients age 65 to 85 who had been diagnosed as knee joint degenerative osteoarthritis in G nursing home in Daejeon city. Randomization was done in blocks of three, holding twenty people per each group to receive either ultrasound, laser, ultrasound-laser integration therapy. This study carried out the experiment for 6 weeks to from April 17, 2010. We measured variables using visual analog scale (VAS) and pressure threshold meter (PTM) of the effects by before and after exercise. Results: It has been found that VAS was reduced and PTM was increased in all three groups. Compare with the other groups, Ultrasound-laser integration therapy group had lower VAS and higher PTM than ultrasound therapy and laser therapy group. Conclusions: These results lead us to the conclusion that ultrasound-laser integration have influenced the pain reduction of the knee degenerative osteoarthritis.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.76-84
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• 2007

This study was designed to determine the efficacy of ultrasound and laser therapy for sub-acute lower back pain. Twenty-seven patients with sub-acute low back pain were recruited, who were randomly assigned to three groups: Ultrasound group (actual ultrasound, 1.1 MHz, $1.0W/cm^2$, duty cycle 100%, 10 min/session, n=9), laser group (actual laser, 904 nm, 155 ns, 13.5 W, 12 mW, 90 sec/point, n=9), and control group (placebo ultrasound or placebo laser, n=9). All of treatments including placebo procedures were applied to patients over a period of 2 weeks, five times a week. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Modified Schober's Test (MST), and Modified Oswestry Disability Questionnaire (MODQ) were used by the clinical and functional evaluations before and after intervention. At post-hoc, significant differences were observed in all groups with respect to VAS, MST (p<.05), except MODQ. VAS and MST score were more significantly improved in the ultrasound group than the laser and control group (p<.0167). However, no significant difference was present between the laser group and the control group. Therefore, this study revealed that ultrasound therapy was effective in pain relief and improvement of lumbar mobility in patients with sub-acute lower back pain. However, laser therapy did not show the effects for sub-acute lower back pain.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1116-1122
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• 2005

A finite element method was used to simulate the wave propagation of laser-generated ultrasound and its interaction with surface breaking cracks in an elastic material. Thermoelastic laser line source on the material surface was approximated as a shear dipole and loaded as nodal forces in the plane-strain finite element (FE) model. The shear dipole- FE model was tested for the generation of ultrasound on the surface with no defect. The model was found to generate the Rayleigh surface wave. The model was then extended to examine the interaction of laser generated ultrasound with surface-breaking cracks of various depths. The crack-scattered waves were monitored to size the crack depth. The proposed model clearly reproduced the experimentally observed features that can be used to characterize the presence of surface-breaking cracks.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1-5
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• 2012

We demonstrate that reduced graphene oxide (rGO) coated thin aluminum film is an effective optoacoustic transmitter for generating high pressure and high frequency ultrasound previously unattainable by other techniques. The rGO layer of different thickness is deposited between a 100 nm-thick aluminum film and a glass substrate. Under a pulsed laser excitation, the transmitter generates enhanced optoacoustic pressure of 64 times the aluminum-alone transmitter. A promising optoacoustic wave generation is possible by optimizing thermoelasticity of metal film and thermal conductivity of rGO in the proposed transmitter for laser-induced ultrasound (LIUS) applications.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2010

Non-contacting, laser-based resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (L-RUS) was applied to characterize the microstructure of a material. L-RUS is widely used by virtue of its many features. Firstly, L-RUS can be used to measure mechanical damping which related to the microstructural variations (grain boundary, grain size, precipitation, defects, dislocations etc). Secondly, L-RUS technology can be applied to various areas, such as the noncontact and nondestructive quality test for precision components as well as noncontact and nondestructive materials characterization. In addition, L-RUS technology can measure the whole field resonant frequency at once. In this paper, we evaluated material characteristics such as resonant frequency, nonlinear propagation characteristic through the development of Laser-Based Resonant Ultrasound spectroscopy (Laser-RUS) System for the detection of Micro Crack in Materials.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.41-45
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• 2006

The fabrication process of fiber placement system of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) requires real time process control and reliable inspection to ensure quality by preventing defects such as delamination and void. Therefore, novel non-contact inspection technique is required during the non-destructive evaluation in a fiber placement system. For the inspection of delamination in CFRP, various methods to receive laser-generated ultrasound were applied by using piezoelectric transducer, air-coupled transducer, wavelet transform and scanning laser ultrasonic technique. Laser-generated ultrasound was received with a conventional piezoelectric sensor in contacting manner. Then signal characteristics due to defects were analyzed to find a factor for detecting defects. Air-coupled transducer was used for reception of laser-generated guided wave using linear slit array in order to generate high frequency guided wave. And line scan technique was used to confirm the capability of on-line application. The high frequency component of laser-generated guided wave received with piezoelectric sensor disappeared after propagating through delamination region. Nevertheless, it was failed to receive high frequency guided wave in using air-coupled transducer. The first peak of the frequency spectrum under 100kHz in the delamination region is higher than in the sound region. By using this feature, the line scanned frequency data were acquired in fully non-contact generation and reception of ultrasound. This method was proved as useful technique for detecting delamination in CFRP.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.259-260
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• 2007

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.309-310
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• 2009

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.459-466
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• 2005

The scanning laser source (SLS) technique has been proposed recently as an effective way to investigate small surface-breaking defects, By monitoring the amplitude and frequency changes of the ultrasound generated as the SLS scans over a defect, the SLS technique has provided enhanced signal-to-noise performance compared to the traditional pitch-catch or pulse-echo ultrasonic methods, An extension of the SLS approach to map defects in microdevices is proposed by bringing both the generator and the receiver to the near-field scattering region of the defects, To facilitate near-field ultrasound measurement, silicon microcantilever probes are fabricated using microfabrication technique and their acoustical characteristics are investigated, Then, both the laser-generated ultrasonic source and the microcantilever probe are used to monitor near-field scattering by a surface-breaking defect.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.457-466
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• 2014

This paper presents an analytic and numerical simulation of the generation and propagation of pico-second ultrasound with nano-scale wavelength, enabling the production of bulk waves in thin films. An analytic model of laser-matter interaction and elasto-dynamic wave propagation is introduced to calculate the elastic strain pulse in microstructures. The model includes the laser-pulse absorption on the material surface, heat transfer from a photon to the elastic energy of a phonon, and acoustic wave propagation to formulate the governing equations of ultra-short ultrasound. The excitation and propagation of acoustic pulses produced by ultra-short laser pulses are numerically simulated for an aluminum substrate using the finite-difference method and compared with the analytical solution. Furthermore, Fourier analysis was performed to investigate the frequency spectrum of the simulated elastic wave pulse. It is concluded that a pico-second bulk wave with a very high frequency of up to hundreds of gigahertz is successfully generated in metals using a 100-fs laser pulse and that it can be propagated in the direction of thickness for thickness less than 100 nm.