Experimental and Computational Investigation of Guided Waves in a Human Skull

Abstract

We investigate guided (Lamb) waves in a human cadaver skull through experiments and computational simulations. Ultrasonic wedge transducers and scanning laser Doppler vibrometry are used respectively to excite and measure Lamb waves propagating in the cranial bone of a degassed skull. Measurements are performed over a section of the parietal bone and temporal bone spanning the squamous suture. The experimental data are analyzed for the identification of wave modes and the characterization of dispersion properties. In the parietal bone, for instance, the A0 wave mode is excited between 200 and 600 kHz, and higher-order Lamb waves are excited from 1 to 1.8 MHz. From the experimental dispersion curves and average thickness extracted from the skull computed tomography scan, we estimate average isotropic material properties that capture the essential dispersion characteristics using a semi-analytical finite-element model. We also explore the leaky and non-leaky wave behavior of the degassed skull with water loading in the cranial cavity. Successful excitation of leaky Lamb waves is confirmed (for higher-order wave modes with phase velocity faster than the speed of sound in water) from 500 kHz to 1.5 MHz, which may find applications in imaging and therapeutics at the brain periphery or skull–brain interface (e.g., for metastases). The non-leaky A0 Lamb wave mode propagates between 200 and 600 kHz, with or without fluid loading, for potential use in skull-related diagnostics and imaging (e.g., for sutures).