Investigation of ultrasound propagation through dense glass bead packings immersed in water

Abstract

Conventional ultrasound imaging generally relies on a single scattering assumption and a constant sound hypothesis. However, in dense granular sediments where the glass beads diameter is comparable to the wavelength (typically 500 μm), both hypothesizes are no longer valid, resulting in a loss of resolution and contrast, up to the situation where a target to image could totally vanish in the fog. To better characterize this strongly scattering medium, we have conducted several ultrasonic experiments in reflection and in transmission, either on the diffused wave or on the coherent one. Both the transport and scattering mean free paths are estimated in the imaging bandwidth (1–5 MHz), alongside with the phase velocity and extinction length of the coherent wave. These results are compared with an analytical model, i.e. Generalized Coherent Potential Approximation*, which considers a coated sphere buried in an effective medium. Finally, we show a dispersive beamformer which takes into account the measured phase and group velocity. This allows us to obtain a more resolved and contrasted image in such a scattering medium. * Jing X, Sheng P, Zhou M. Phys Rev Lett. 1991