Ultrasonics最新文献

{"title":"Development of bulk wave EMAT sensors with enhanced Lorentz force through magnetic field concentration in eddy current regions","authors":"Vinay Mudapaka ,&nbsp;Thulsiram Gantala ,&nbsp;Krishnan Balasubramaniam","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107687","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107687","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper, we propose the development of electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) to generate ultrasonic bulk waves and inspect metallic specimens at elevated temperatures. EMATs play a vital role in the NDE due to their non-contact inspection behavior; however, they are constrained by their low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), especially under high-temperature conditions. This work addresses the challenges by developing EMAT configurations that enhance the Lorentz force and ultrasonic wave generation by optimizing the magnetic field in the region of eddy current generation. The Finite Element (FE) simulations were performed in aluminum samples to study the eddy current through varying coil widths, liftoffs, and static magnetic field intensity concentration. The FE simulations on eddy current revealed that eddy current intensity is independent of the coil widths. Different EMAT configurations were designed and developed by concentrating the static magnetic field intensity in the region of the eddy current generation by considering the simulation results. Various EMAT configurations were fabricated and tested on 26 mm and 50 mm aluminum samples to measure their SNR. The configuration with the highest SNR was further tested at elevated temperatures under proper insulation techniques. These advancements have the potential to enhance the capabilities of NDE techniques in challenging industrial environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107687"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144134157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Early detection of corrosion in reinforced concrete using ultrasonic guided wave technique correlated with embedded fiber bragg grating strain sensors","authors":"Nura Habbaba ,&nbsp;Samir Mustapha ,&nbsp;Ye Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107701","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107701","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Reinforced concrete (RC) is commonly utilized in construction, but corrosion, particularly in marine environments, causes considerable challenges, resulting in high maintenance costs. Non-destructive corrosion detection techniques are critical to ensure structural safety. This study aims to detect early corrosion in steel-reinforced concrete using leaking UGW. UGW propagation in steel bars embedded in concrete and energy leakage through the concrete medium were explored experimentally and numerically. The study also aims to provide passive corrosion monitoring using embedded Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) strain sensors. An accelerated corrosion setup using the impressed voltage technique was employed to simulate natural corrosion in RC specimens. The results reveal that the first longitudinal mode, L(0,1), is dominant and its amplitude is sensitive to corrosion, even when monitored away from the corrosion source. Different corrosion stages (initiation, progression, and diameter reduction) were distinguished by variations in signal strength and L(0,1) characteristics. The leaky wave observed from bar 2, which was subjected to corrosion and propagated to neighboring bars, showed sensitivity to the diameter reduction phase and crack propagation. This was indicated by a significant drop in amplitude during that phase. Additionally, the integration of FBG sensors provided further insights into the correlation between strain and GW readings, particularly during the diameter reduction phase. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of UGW for the detection and assessment of corrosion in steel-reinforced concrete structures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107701"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144098491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"High intensity focused ultrasound for high strain rate material testing and delamination","authors":"Jacob Brody ,&nbsp;Prabhakaran Manogharan ,&nbsp;Nathan Moore ,&nbsp;Alper Erturk","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107689","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107689","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a non-contact method of focusing energy through acoustic waves at high frequencies. HIFU is attractive in nature due to its ability to produce highly focused energy both spatially and temporally. Besides its biomedical applications such as tumor ablation, recently, HIFU has been proposed as a remote excitation mechanism for shape recovery and surface treatment of polymers, among others. However, HIFU has not received much attention as a dynamic characterization technique for materials at high strain rates. Here, we report the potential of HIFU as a stress-generating apparatus for material testing. Specifically, we show that adhesively bonded thin-film laminates can be selectively delaminated at the interface via HIFU, demonstrating its capacity as a compact and non-contact mechanism of shock wave generation. Acoustic intensity and duration are varied to understand the interaction of HIFU and adhesive interfaces without contact. This indicates that high strain rate material testing, which is typically performed at strain rates of 10^-3 s^-1, can be done at the high end of the strain rate regime (up to 10⁶ s^-1) using our method. Compared to existing techniques, HIFU therefore presents a key opportunity to induce and analyze impact stresses in materials in a low-cost, compact, and non-contact manner.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107689"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144124126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enhancing thrombolysis efficiency using acoustic vortex tweezers and microbubbles: a microscale mechanistic study with experimental validation","authors":"Ning-Hsuan Chen,&nbsp;Zong-Han Hsieh,&nbsp;Chung-Han Huang,&nbsp;Chih-Kuang Yeh","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107691","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107691","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous research has shown that acoustic vortex tweezers (AVT) combined with microbubbles (MBs) and tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) can enhance thrombolytic efficiency. However, due to varying evaluation methods, an objective framework for investigating its mechanisms is lacking. This study establishes a standardized thrombolysis evaluation protocol to compare AVT, t-PA, and MBs with mainstream sonothrombolysis and to explore their thrombolytic mechanisms. A miniature ultrasound transducer capable of generating an AVT field was applied to fluorescent fibrin clots. The MB penetration and fibrin structure changes were observed using a high-speed camera and confocal microscopy. The drug permeability, thrombolytic efficiency, fragment size, and quantity were then quantified to assess the efficacy and safety of AVT. The results showed that AVT with MBs produced deeper (up to 30 μm) and wider MBs channels and increased fibrin looseness by 32.6 %, significantly enhancing t-PA penetration and fibrin clot dissolution. Within 30 min, the dissolution area in the AVT + t-PA + MBs group was 43.6 % larger than the t-PA only group, without creating excessive or oversized fragments. These findings confirm the potential of AVT for promoting fibrin disruption and drug penetration. Future validation using <em>ex vivo</em> vascular models and animal studies may position AVT as an important adjunct therapy in clinical thrombolysis.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107691"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144106760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Study of heat transfer and flow within atherosclerotic plaques in a focused ultrasound field","authors":"Weirui Lei ,&nbsp;Jiwen Hu ,&nbsp;Jintao Zhai ,&nbsp;Jinru Gong ,&nbsp;Feng Tian ,&nbsp;Shuai Chang ,&nbsp;Xiao Zou ,&nbsp;Fangfang Ju ,&nbsp;Shengyou Qian","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107699","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107699","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Focused ultrasound has been widely used for the thermotherapy of soft tissue lesions. In this process, non-Fourier heat conduction and porous medium theory has to be considered because of non-homogeneous media. The study estimates the effects of the temperature lag and porous medium on the plaque ablation and drug treatment by focused ultrasound (FU). This study integrated TWMBT with the porous media heat transfer equation to characterize the internal temperature distribution within atherosclerotic plaque (AP) during FU application. The coupling equations are solved with finite element method. This paper focuses on the effects of porosity, permeability, and attenuation coefficient on the temperature and flow rate within the AP. The results consider artery wall thickness on heating of AP by FU. In addition, this study qualitatively analyzed the differences among the Pennes, TWMBT, and porous media heat conduction equations. The results show that the temperature responses of biological tissues exhibits lagging behaviors, which are inherently related to the physical time scale. Because of the disparities in the physical characteristics of the target and surrounding tissues, fluid flow within AP can have an impact on the distribution of tissue temperature, the direction of flow between solid tissues is determined by the permeability coefficient and ultrasonic intensity. The permeability coefficient, frequency and attenuation coefficient have a significant effect on the fluid flow within AP. Both heat dissipation and heat convergence are characteristics of fluid flow within the tissue, the focal location and the physical property parameters may affect the fluid heat dissipation and heat collection properties within the tissue. Furthermore, the temperature peak may not occur at the focus. The model can provide an analytical template for different types of precise thermal ablation AP, including radiofrequency<!--> <!-->ablation, microwave therapy, and laser<!--> <!-->ablation besides FU ablation, and can also provide a case for adjunctive drug transport.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107699"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144084523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Frequency-integral method for impact damage detection in carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites by Lamb waves","authors":"Jakub Šedek,&nbsp;Lenka Šedková,&nbsp;Ondřej Vích","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107697","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107697","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The work deals with the detection and localization of impact damage in a carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic composite using Lamb wave type of ultrasonic guided waves. The attention is paid to the universality and robustness of the evaluation process with emphasis on a frequency-integral method. The approach is presented on the composite plate subjected to the sequence of two impacts caused damage. The damage indication utilizes relative time-of-flight delays and the subsequent localization task introduces a novel correlation coefficient for damage indices used in RAPID visualisation algorithm. Generally, the selection of a suitable mode and actuating frequency is essential for the evaluation. On the contrary, it is shown that integral evaluation over wider frequency range works well and can eliminate inappropriate frequencies and other difficulties. The approach provides an overall view of the response of the measured composite plate in conjunction with the inspection system. The capability of the frequency-integral method is shown to be unlike the conventional evaluation process, which involves a chain of steps from Lamb wave tuning, identification of a particular wave packet, to damage determination. The method was implemented into LaWaI GUI (Lamb Waves Inspection Graphical User Interface) to automate the processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107697"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144106761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Domain-separated capsule network for damage detection in aluminum plates under varying vibration conditions","authors":"Qi Jiang ,&nbsp;Xin Huang ,&nbsp;Wenzhong Qu ,&nbsp;Li Xiao ,&nbsp;Ye Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107688","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107688","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The 2024 aluminum alloy, known for its high strength and resistance to fatigue, is widely used in critical parts of aircraft such as wings and fuselages. Techniques that use ultrasonic guided waves for structural health monitoring are commonly applied to detect damage in metal plates. However, changes in environmental vibrations can alter the signals collected, greatly affecting the accuracy of damage identification in aluminum alloy plates. To tackle this challenge, a domain-separated capsule network (DS-CapsNet) has been developed to reduce the impact of environmental vibrations on the accuracy of damage detection. DS-CapsNet integrates a Capsule Network with an attention mechanism to extract and reconstruct damage-related features while minimizing vibration-induced interference. Additionally, a dynamic adversarial factor is introduced to optimize feature alignment between different domains, enhancing the robustness of the model. Moreover, a multi-head self-attention mechanism improves classification performance by effectively capturing complex damage features. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed DS-CapsNet consistently outperforms a broad range of baseline models, including traditional classifiers, deep learning networks, and domain adaptation approaches, confirming its robustness under varying vibration conditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107688"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144068599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Excitation of single mode shear horizontal (0,1) guided wave in a narrow plate waveguide using d24 piezoelectric wafers","authors":"Zhenshun Wei ,&nbsp;Xiaokang Yin ,&nbsp;Hongyuan Zhang ,&nbsp;Gaofeng Ma ,&nbsp;Ziheng Zhang ,&nbsp;Xu Zhang ,&nbsp;Xin’an Yuan ,&nbsp;Wei Li","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107693","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107693","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers are widely used for exciting shear-horizontal (SH) guided waves in narrow plate waveguides (NPW) for high-temperature wall thickness monitoring. The SH(0,1) mode in NPW exhibits nearly nondispersive propagation, making it ideal for monitoring. However, achieving high modal purity and ensuring optimal size matching between the transducer and NPW remain challenging. Existing studies approximate NPW behavior using dispersion curves of plates with infinite width (PIW), leading to inaccuracies in transducer excitation parameter selection. To address this issue, this study develops a dispersion-based excitation parameter selection method for single-mode SH(0,1) wave generation using face-shear (d₂₄) PZT wafers. First, dispersion analysis of SH waves in NPW is conducted using the Floquet periodic boundary conditions method, comparing NPW and PIW dispersion curves to evaluate their differences. Results indicate that in NPW, the cutoff frequency of the SH wave decreases with increasing plate width but remains independent of plate thickness—this contrasts with PIW, where the cutoff frequency varies with plate thickness. Next, based on the dispersion characteristics of SH waves in NPW and SH(0,1) mode shapes, a transducer design optimization approach is proposed. The optimal width and excitation frequency of a symmetrically double-sided d₂₄ PZT wafer transducer are determined. Finite Element simulations and experimental validation are employed to assess the impact of wafer length on excitation performance. Results show that wafers of 6–36 mm length can excite the SH(0,1) mode in a 30 mm wide NPW, with excitation purity and signal-to-noise ratio maximized when the wafer length matches the SH(0,1) mode shape (18–24 mm). A transducer-to-NPW size ratio of 0.6–0.8 enables nearly nondispersive, single-mode SH(0,1) wave excitation. This study provides theoretical guidance for transducer design and has potential implications for broad engineering applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107693"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143936272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Probing phased-array focused ultrasound transducers using realistic 3D in-silico trabecular skull models: a numerical study","authors":"Federico Rossano ,&nbsp;Salvatore Maria Aglioti ,&nbsp;Francesca Apollonio ,&nbsp;Giancarlo Ruocco ,&nbsp;Micaela Liberti","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107692","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107692","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) is an emerging neuromodulation technology with transformative potential for brain disease therapies. This study explores how the trabecular structure of the human skull affects the performance of multi-element tFUS transducers. Numerical simulations were conducted using realistic 3D skull models with varying porosities (0 %, 50 %, and 60 %), comparing the pressure fields generated by two geometrically distinct 96-elements phased-array transducers (f-number = 0.8 −transducer 1- and f-number = 1.1 −transducer 2-).</div><div>Pressure distribution maps and −6dB isosurfaces were analyzed to quantify focal and scattered volumes, as well as focus shifts. Results demonstrate that porous skull models significantly impact the pressure field, introducing scattering and hotspots outside the target area, that are undetectable with non-porous models. Both transducers exhibit focus shifts along the propagation axis, with transducer 2 showing lower selectivity and nearly 450 % and 1000 % increased scattering compared to transducer 1 in the porous models.</div><div>These findings emphasize the necessity of incorporating such models in tFUS simulations to improve the accuracy of pressure predictions and device performance. Our results highlight the critical importance of accurately modelling skull porosity in tFUS simulations. Using simplified non-porous models can obscure scattering effects and lead to distorted predictions of transducer performance. This work also demonstrates how generating in-silico porous models with varying porosity allows for testing the reliability and robustness of a numerically designed transducer. It also provides valuable insights into optimizing transducer design ultimately improving target precision while mitigating unintended sonication, laying the groundwork for safer and more effective tFUS therapies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107692"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143943443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phased array approach to generate guided waves and extract phase velocities using the V(z) method","authors":"Michaël Lematre,&nbsp;Marc Lethiecq","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107686","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2025.107686","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The aim of this paper is to investigate the possibility to use a phased array transducer instead of a classical single-element transducer when applying the V(z) method to obtain the guided mode velocities of a sample, from which elastic constants can de deduced. Thus it studies the advantages and precautions that should be taken for generating and detecting acoustic guided waves by the V(z) method with a phased array transducer. By defining a delay law allowing the generated acoustic field to be focused, it is shown that it is possible to obtain V(z) curves in a similar way as when using geometrically focused (i.e. spherical or cylindrical shape) transducers. A detailed analysis is presented to illustrate how the choices of the number of activated array elements, the focal distance and the frequency values, influence the generation and detection of guided modes on an anisotropic substrate. First, a model of the V(z) acoustic signature obtained when using a phased array transducer is developed. Then, in order to illustrate the influence of the phased array parameters, the generation and detection of guided modes on a single-crystal anisotropic silicon substrate are discussed. The interest of the V(z) method coupled with a phased array transducer to generate and detect the surface acoustic wave (SAW), pseudo-surface wave (PSAW), and even the surface skimming quasi-longitudinal wave (SSQLW) is thus demonstrated. In this study, we also highlight that careful attention must be paid to the choice of the parameters of the phased array transducer in combination with the working frequency to avoid instabilities on V(z) curves.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"154 ","pages":"Article 107686"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144068598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}