Lab Exercise

Ultrasonic pulse-echo technique

Sebastian Krodel
October 21, 2013

Ultrasonic Principle

The propagation of ultrasonic waves (100kHz - 100MHz) in solid media is widely

used for nondestructive testing. The wave velocity is the most common parameter in these methods and describes the velocity at which disturbances travel
in a certain material. The value of the wave velocity depends on the material
itself, the geometry and the type of excitation. In the scope of this experiment
the students will be guided to measure the bulk wave velocity of longitudinal
(particle velocity k wave-velocity) and shear waves (particle velocity wavevelocity). Assuming a linear elastic and isotropic material the two parameters
can be calculated by:
s
cl =
r
ct =

+ 2

(1)

(2)

Therefore if the wave speed and the mass density are know, the two Lame
constants can be extracted.
The propagation in solid media is effected by attenuation, which means that
the pulse height is reduced progressively. Attenuation occurs in every material
due to internal friction and energy absorption. Moreover in dispersive media
we observe pulse spreading and amplitude reduction because every frequency of
the waveform travels with a different velocity.
The generation of ultrasonic waves is accomplished by placing a piezoelectric
transducer in contact with the specimen. When subjected to a voltage the
piezoelectric transducer converts electrical energy to mechanical energy by deformation. Therefore a mechanical pulse is created. To ensure sufficient coupling
between the transducer a coupling liquid has to be used.

Draw the qualitative change in the shape of a typical pulse traveling

through a medium with (a) material attenuation, (b) dispersion and (c)
material attenuation + dispersion.
1

Wave velocity experiments

The experimental setup of the conducted wave velocity experiment consists of:
a. ultrasonic pulser receiver Olympus PR 5058PR
b. digital oscilloscope
c. shear and longitudinal wave transducers
d. test specimen
e. couplant liquid
A schematic of the setup can be seen in figure 1. The ultrasonic pulser/receiver
can be run in either pulse-echo or in pulse-receive mode. For the first operation
mode only one transducer is required.
In this experiment we will use the pulse echo technique to characterize the wave
speeds in a set of specimen. At the end of the experiment you should be able

Figure 1: Experimental setup

to answer the following questions:
Which are the wave speeds in the analyzed specimen?
What material are the specimen made of?
Can the elastic stiffness of a material be estimated just from the measurement of the wave velocity?
Could the same procedure be used to estimate the elastic coefficients in
fiber composites?
2

 Does the interface behave like a free surface or rigid boundary?

For more information please have a look at the lab manual and the references
therein.