Employment of a novel ultrasonic method to investigate high pressure phase transitions in oleic acid

In this work, the variation of sound velocity with hydrostatic pressure for oleic acid is evaluated up to 350 MPa. During the measurement, we identified the phase transformation of oleic acid and the presence of the hysteresis of the dependence of sound velocity on pressure. From the performed measurements, it can be seen that the dependence of sound velocity on pressure can be used to investigate phase transformations in natural oils. Ultrasonic waves were excited and detected using piezoelectric LiNbO₃(Y-36 cut) 5 MHz transducers. The phase velocity of the longitudinal ultrasonic waves was measured using a cross-correlation method to evaluate the time of flight.