Ultrasonic laboratory tests of geophysical tomographic reconstruction

Abstract

In this study, we test geophysical ray tomography and geophysical diffraction tomography by scaled model ultrasonics experiments. First, we compare the performance of these two methods under limited view‐angle conditions. Second, we compare the adaptabilities of these two methods to objects of various sizes and acoustic properties. Finally, for diffraction tomography, we compare the Born and Rytov approximations based on the induced image distortion by using these two approximation methods. Our experimental results indicate the following: (1) When the scattered field can be obtained, geophysical diffraction tomography is in general superior to ray tomography because diffraction tomography is less sensitive to the limited view‐angle problem and can image small objects of size comparable to a wavelength. (2) The advantage of using ray tomography is that reconstruction can be done using the first arrivals only, the most easily measurable quantity; and there is no restriction on the properties of the object being imaged. (3) For geophysical diffraction tomography, the Rytov approximation is valid over a wider frequency range than the Born approximation in the cross‐borehole experiment. In the VSP and the surface reflection tomography experiments, no substantial difference between the Born and Rytov approximations is observed.