A numerical model for ultrasonic measurements of swelling and mechanical properties of a swollen PVA hydrogel.

This paper presents a numerical model for the evaluation of mechanical properties of a relatively thin hydrogel. The model utilizes a system identification method to evaluate the acoustical parameters from ultrasonic measurement data. The model involves the calculation of the forward model based on an ultrasonic wave propagation incorporating diffraction effect. Ultrasonic measurements of a hydrogel are also performed in a reflection mode. A Nonlinear Least Square (NLS) algorithm is employed to minimize difference between the results from the model and the experimental data. The acoustical parameters associated with the model are effectively modified to achieve the minimum error. As a result, the parameters of PVA hydrogels namely thickness, density, an ultrasonic attenuation coefficient and dispersion velocity are effectively determined. In order to validate the model, the conventional density measurements of hydrogels were also performed.

Ultrasonic diffraction tomography by pulse-plane wave: experimental result by frequency synthesis method.

Diffraction tomography is a technique for imaging with acoustic fields in which parameter, such as reflective index, sound velocity, etc., can be mapped from scatter wave resulting from insonifying the object with a plane wave at a single temporal frequency. By solving the direct scattering problem, the scattered field can be presented in term of scattering parameters. Different inversion techniques can be applied to take advantage of the linearization process of the non-linear wave equation describing wave propagation in heterogeneous media under a limited class of scattering. Specifically, when the scattering effect is weak, one can invoke the Born or Rytov approximation and thus derive the generalized Fourier slice theorem to reconstruct the cross-section of the insonified object. Although diffraction tomography is a promising technology for medical application as it provides a quantitative ultrasonic image, its realization toward medical use is still far-to-go, and this may be due to the complexity of the hardware involved. In this research we investigate a potential use of diffraction tomography for medical application by using a delicate-designed ultrasonic computerized tomographic system. The contribution of the paper is that we have purposed to frequency synthesis method (FSM) that uses 3 frequency components of the Fourier transform of scattered filed, i.e. the center frequency and the -3 dB from center frequency of both side, to fill Fourier space for the generalized Fourier slice theory. The reconstructed ultrasonic image from such theory provides a very promising result.