Range discrimination in ultrasonic vibrometry: theory and experiment

A technique has been developed to demodulate periodic broadband ultrasonic interrogation signals that are returned from multiple scattering sites to simultaneously determine the low-frequency displacement time histories of each individual site. The technique employs a broadband periodic transmit signal. The motions of scattering sites are separately determined from the echoed receive signal by an algorithm involving comb filtering and pulse synthesis. This algorithm permits spatial resolution comparable to pulse-echo techniques and displacement sensitivities comparable to pure-tone techniques. A system based on this technique was used to image transient audio-frequency displacements on the order of 1-10 μm peak (≥?50 nm/√Hz) that were produced by propagating shear waves in a tissue phantom. The system used concentric transmitting and receiving transducers and a carrier signal centered at 2.5 MHz with an 800 kHz bandwidth. The system was self-noise-limited and capable of detecting motions of strongly reflecting regions on the order of 1 nm/√Hz. System performance is limited by several factors including signal selection, component hardware, and ultrasonic propagation within the media of interest.     

Detection of bone disease with ultrasound--comparison with bone densitometry

A system for ultrasonic in-vivo examination of a heel bone (calcaneus) was developed. When operating in transmission mode, the system can measure broadband ultrasonic attenuation-BUA, speed of sound--SOS and thickness of bone. BUA and SOS are measured by comparing the pulses transmitted through the heel with the reference pulse transmitted through water. In our approach, we operate in the backscattered mode in addition to transmission. The backscattered ultrasonic technique for bone characterization is very promising because the magnitude of backscattered waves depends on the scattering cross-section of a trabecular structure that, to some extent, describes the microarchitecture of a calcaneus. Additionally, when the backscattered and transmitted signals are compared, some of the signal distortions caused by tissue and bone interfaces are reduced. A set of data representing signals transmitted through the heel and reflected inside a calcaneus for patients with osteoporosis was collected. Several signal-processing techniques were applied in order to smooth the backscattered signal and to calculate a trabecular structure cros-section (TSC) function. Results obtained by these approaches along with a spectral shift method and a standard BUA measurement are presented and compared to X-ray bone mineral density determination results.     

超声脉冲窄带激励的水泥环第二界面探测方法*

如何评价水泥环的第二界面固井质量一直是声波测井领域的世界性难题。本文利用有限元方法研究了基于超声脉冲反射法的水泥环第二界面固井质量探测方法。数值模拟了不同声源脉冲宽度及不同声阻抗地层对第二界面超声反射回波的影响。研究结果表明采用窄带的激励信号源可有效的提高水泥环第二界面反射波回波幅度,有望解决水泥环第二界面固井质量评价问题。制作了水泥环第二界面具有胶结缺陷的实验室样品及大型固井质量刻度井,在此基础上开展了基于窄带超声脉冲激励的实验室及刻度井群实验研究。实验结果表明满足水泥环第一界固井质量良好条件,采用窄带的超声脉冲回波技术可有效评价水泥环第二界面固井质量。     

Shear Stress in a Couette Flow of Liquid-Particle Suspensions

The mechanisms of momentum transfer and shear stress of liquid-particle suspensions in two-dimensional Couette flow are studied using direct numerical simulation by lattice-Boltzmann techniques. The results obtained display complex flow phenomena that arise from the two-phase nature of the fluid including a nonlinear velocity profile, layering of particles, and apparent slip near the solid walls. The general rheological behaviour of the suspension is dilatant. A detailed study of the various momentum transfer mechanisms that contribute to the total shear stress indicates that the observed shear thickening is related to enhanced relative solid phase stress for increasing shear rates.     

大功率单脉冲超声信号发生器的设计

为了提高探伤深度,实现混凝土大坝等散射强介质的超声检测,本文提出了一种成本低,小体积,结构简单的大功率单脉冲超声信号发生器,并给出了原理电路设计。所述装置利用控制电容充放电经脉冲变压器产生瞬时高压脉冲的新思路,克服了过去由于信号幅度限制功率上不去的困难。经实验验证该装置与现有的单脉冲信号发生器相比,探伤深度得到了很大提高,可用于混凝土结构构建的超声探伤。     

Nonlinear propagation effects on broadband attenuation measurements and its implications for ultrasonic tissue characterization.

A study is presented in which the influence of the pressure amplitude of the incident pulse on the estimated frequency dependency of the attenuation coefficient is shown. First, the effect is demonstrated with a simple theoretical model for both transmission and reflection measurements. Simulations show that for both measurement techniques a high-amplitude incident pulse results in a biased estimate of the attenuation coefficient due to nonlinear interaction of the different frequency components of the incident pulse. It is shown that in transmission and reflection measurements the biases have opposite signs. The effect of bandwidth, central frequency, and phase of the incident pulse on this bias is investigated. Second, the effect is demonstrated both in vitro, using a broadband through-transmission substitution technique on a tissue mimicking gelatine phantom, and in vivo, using reflection measurements with standard clinical equipment. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical model. The relevance of this study for ultrasonic tissue characterization is shown.     

Detection and quantification of insoluble particles by ultrasound spectroscopy

The Ultrafood system, a custom-built diagnostic ultrasound device, is used to accurately measure the concentration of particulate matter in a fluctuating high temperature liquid system. The two main problems, of thermal expansion and thermal variation in ultrasonic outputs were tackled by multi-distance measurement and low frequency spectroscopy, respectively. The resulting techniques have application at laboratory, scale for investigation of particulate suspensions and for online process monitoring.     

黏弹材料动力学参数的宽频测试

利用改进的波速法,对黏弹性材料连续宽频范围的动力学参数进行测试。利用有限元方法,对波速法的测试过程进行了仿真,验证了利用长短棒波速法测量宽频动力学参数的有效性。采用可控脉冲生成技术,在激振器上产生了用于宽频测试的短脉冲信号。黏弹性长短棒在上述宽带短脉冲激励下作纵向强迫振动,利用激光测振仪测量长短两棒自由端的纵向振动速度,从而可得两振动信号在连续宽频范围的幅值比和相位差,进而可根据波速法原理计算得到材料在连续宽频范围的储能模量和损耗因子。测试结果表明,该系统通过较少次数测试,可直接计算得到1~5 kHz连续宽频范围的动力学参数,测试结果与黏弹仪数据吻合。通过对幅值比和相位差进行线性最小二乘拟合,可以进一步拓展测量的频率范围。该方法准确可靠、简便快速,具有实际应用价值。      

On the measurement of frequency-dependent ultrasonic attenuation in strongly heterogeneous materials

This paper deals with the measurement of frequency-dependent ultrasonic attenuation in strongly heterogeneous materials, such as cementitious materials. To improve the measurement of this parameter on this kind of materials, a linear swept–frequency signal is used to drive an emitter transducer to conduct a through-transmission inspection in immersion. To filter out undesirable frequency content, time–frequency filtering and detection process are performed. The use of this method has been compared with two excitation techniques, the broadband and the narrowband pulses. The results obtained using the swept–frequency excitation together with the time–frequency filtering, allows the determination of the attenuation curves with high accuracy over a wide frequency range without the need for complicated equipment, and improves the effective bandwidth by using a unique pair of transducers.     

超声在固体火箭发动机无损检测中的应用

在固体火箭发动机的研制中，无损检测技术非常重要。本文介绍了一些主要的超声检测方法及其应用。脉冲多次反射法用于检测固体火箭发动机壳体与衬层之间的粘结质量。特性参数和扫频超声法以多层介质理论为基础，用于检测固体火箭发动机的深层粘结质量。     

Ultrasonic propagation in slurries

Experimental measurements have been made of the ultrasonic velocity and attenuation in some simple suspensions of, mainly, silicon carbide in water and in ethylene glycol. These are compared with theoretical predictions based on a novel hydrodynamic model. Predicted ultrasonic velocities are in excellent agreement with the measured values. Predicted and measured ultrasonic attenuations do not agree as well. However, the suspensions give rise to excess attenuations rising to a few hundred nepers per metre and special experimental techniques were needed to measure ultrasonic properties. To predict attenuations to within, say, 20% for mixtures such as these is a major achievement.     

油-气-水三相流超声传感器持气率测量*

为探索油-气-水三相流持气率测量难题,该文开展了脉冲透射式超声传感器持气率测量动态实验研究。首先,利用超声传感器与光纤传感器组合,测取了油-气-水三相流中段塞流、混状流、泡状流的响应信号;其次,提取了超声脉冲信号的最大值序列来反映不同流型时超声传感器响应特性,同时,借助双头光纤传感器与相关测速法,计算得到了流体中气泡弦长序列;最后,结合流型与泡径信息,利用超声传感器测量了不同流型下持气率,并分析了不同流型持气率预测的误差来源,为其他油-气-水三相流持气率测量传感器设计提供了借鉴。     

虚拟式声显微镜及应用技术研究

本文描述一台虚拟式扫描声显微镜及应用技术研究，它的硬件特别简单，仅由一台带有超高速A/D卡和快脉冲收发卡的PC机和机械扫描系统组成，主要的功能均由软件完成，脉冲收发卡仅包括脉冲产生和高频放大器，A/D卡采用PCI总线，采样率1GSPS，数据传输率100MB/s，系统能采集并实时显示频率达百兆的未检波回波信号，采修订本以的信号经软件处理，可在屏幕上实时显示样品的A、B、C型幅度像或相位像，仪器利用信号处理技术提高信号的信噪比；进行特征提取，识别，该仪器在材料识别，电子、光电子器件和焊接质量检测等方面功能较强，具有广阔的开发应用前景。     

超声波流速测量的多普勒频移提取方法研究

为了提高超声波多普勒法测量复杂流体流量的精度,针对流体的超声回波频率的复杂性,本文研究多普勒流速测量中的频偏提取方法。以傅里叶分析为理论基础,设计了硬件电路并获得代表回波平均频率的信号,然后以该信号作为输入,以数字鉴频法获得回波多普勒频移。基于该方法设计了一种超声多普勒流量测量系统,实验结果显示:油水混合流体流量的测量误差在3%以内,从而证实了此频偏提取方法的有效性。     

Proposal for the measuring molecular velocity vector with single-pulse coherent Raman spectroscopy

Methods for simultaneous measurements of more than one flow velocity component using coherent Raman spectroscopy are proposed. It is demonstrated that using a kilowatt broad-band probe pulse (3–30 GHz) along with a megawatt narrow-band pump pulse (～100 MHz), coherent Raman signal resulting from a single laser pulse is sufficient to produce a high-resolution Raman spectrum for a velocity measurement.     

In vivo dark-field reflection-mode photoacoustic microscopy

Reflection-mode photoacoustic microscopy with dark-field laser pulse illumination and high-numerical-aperture ultrasonic detection is designed and implemented in noninvasively imaged blood vessels in the skin in vivo. Dark-field optical illumination minimizes the interference caused by strong photoacoustic signals from superficial structures. A high-numerical-aperture acoustic lens provides high lateral resolution, 45-120 microm in this system. A broadband ultrasonic detection system provides high axial resolution, estimated to be approximately 15 microm. The optical illumination and ultrasonic detection are in a coaxial confocal configuration for optimal image quality. The system is capable of imaging optical-absorption contrast as deep as 3 mm in biological tissue.     

Hidden corrosion detection in aircraft aluminum structures using laser ultrasonics and wavelet transform signal analysis

Preliminary results of hidden corrosion detection in aircraft aluminum structures using a noncontact laser based ultrasonic technique are presented. A short laser pulse focused to a line spot is used as a broadband source of ultrasonic guided waves in an aluminum 2024 sample cut from an aircraft structure and prepared with artificially corroded circular areas on its back surface. The out of plane surface displacements produced by the propagating ultrasonic waves were detected with a heterodyne Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Time-frequency analysis of the signals using a continuous wavelet transform allowed the identification of the generated Lamb modes by comparison with the calculated dispersion curves. The presence of back surface corrosion was detected by noting the loss of the S(1) mode near its cutoff frequency. This method is applicable to fast scanning inspection techniques and it is particularly suited for early corrosion detection.     

Investigation of Bubbly Flow by Ultrasonic Tomography

Computerized tomography (CT) means reconstruction of pictures from projections taken at different angles. This method is well known in fields such as medical diagnostics and nondestructive testing. The application of CT to gas/liquid flow measurement results in a non-intrusive method for measuring the spatial distribution of the gas phase in a cross-section of the flow. In our application the projection data are obtained from measurement of the extinction along a set of ultrasonic rays in this cross-section, using piezo-ceramic ultrasonic transducers. The transducers are arranged in a circular sensor array which is directly integrated in the pipe wall of the flow; instead of mechanical rotation, the sensors are sequentially switched.     

Photonic sensing of the atmosphere by absorption spectroscopy

Chemically reactive atmospheric species play a crucial role in tropospheric processes which affect regional air quality and global climate change. Contrary to long-lived species such as greenhouse gases, interference-free accurate and precise concentration assessments of strongly reactive short-lived species represent a real challenge. In this paper, we report on the recent progress in spectroscopic instrumental developments for monitoring of OH, NO₃, HONO and NO₂ by using modern photonic sources (Quantum Cascade Laser, distributed feedback diode laser, light emitting diode) in conjunction with high-sensitivity spectroscopic measurement techniques such as multi-pass cell based long optical path length absorption spectroscopy, wavelength-modulation enhanced off-axis integrated cavity output spectroscopy, Faraday rotation spectroscopy, incoherent broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy. The main techniques available for routine atmospheric measurements of OH, NO₃ and HONO are overviewed, in comparison with the emerging modern photonic spectroscopy techniques.