Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

A dedicated ultrasonic scanner for acquiring RF echoes backscattered from the trabecular bone was developed. The design of device is based on the goal of minimizing of custom electronics and computations executed solely on the main computer processor and the graphics card. The electronic encoder-digitizer module executing all of the transmission and reception functions is based on a single low-cost field programmable gate array (FPGA). The scanner is equipped with a mechanical sector-scan probe with a concave transducer with 50 mm focal length, center frequency of 1.5 MHz and 60% bandwidth at −6 dB. The example of femoral neck bone examination shows that the scanner can provide ultrasonic data from deeply located bones with the ultrasound penetrating the trabecular bone up to a depth of 20 mm. It is also shown that the RF echo data acquired with the scanner allow for the estimation of attenuation coefficient and frequency dependence of backscattering coefficient of trabecular bone. The values of the calculated parameters are in the range of corresponding in vitro data from the literature but their variation is relatively high.

cancellous bone, broadband ultrasound attenuation, FPGA

In this work a structure of a ultrasonic chemical sensor with organic monomolecular layer as well as introductory measurement with the help of a set-up constructed in IFTR PAS are presented. Chemical composition of this layer is an equimolar mixture of 5-[[1,3-dioxo-3- [4-(1-oxooctadecyl) phenyl] propyl] amino] – 1,3 – benzenedicarboxylic acid (DA) and cetylamine (CA). The thickness of this layer is equal to dimension of one molecule. The sensor layer was deposited on one channel of the bi-channel sensor delay line (made from lithium niobiate) by means of the Langmuir–Blodgett method. The chemical sensitivity of this sensor to some mixtures of air with vapor of volatile organic compounds has been investigated

ultrasonic chemical sensor, Langmuir–Blodgett layers, air-organic vapor mixtures, volatile organic compounds

Nonlinear propagation effects produced by focused pulses in blood were measured over a 20-cm range, being inspired by diagnostic applications in cardiology. The initial and maximum pressures applied during measurements in blood were equal to 0.40 MPapp and 0.76 MPapp, while the pressure estimated at the patient body surface equalled 0.70 MPapp. Measurements of the frequency characteristic and the linearity of the ultrasonic probe used in experiments were performed in water. A numerical procedure developed previously was applied in blood to calculate the pressure distribution of its first and second harmonics along the beam axis. The comparison of numerical and measured distributions in blood at a temperature of 37°C showed rather good agreement. Using numerical methods, a proportional growth of the second harmonic with the increased applied initial pressure was first observed, and finally the maximum limiting effect was found. In this way, much higher level of harmonics could be obtained. However, there arise the questions of the transmitting system construction and of the nonuniform resolution in the case of harmonic imaging when increasing the applied initial pressure.

Ultrasound, Pulses, Nonlinear propagation, Blood, Cardiology

W pracy przedstawiono wstępne wyniki pomiaru pola temperatury wewnątrz tkanki in vitro w czasie procesu nagrzewania wiązką ultradźwiękową o słabej mocy oraz pomiaru właściwości akustycznych wzorców tkanek miękkich. Wzorce te zbudowano w celu dalszych badań nad powiązaniem wzrostu temperatury z właściwościami akustycznymi, gdyż próbki tkankowe in vitro okazały się niepowtarzalne i nietrwałe. Na wykonanych 3 wzorcach tkankowych dokonano pomiaru sygnału przejścia i wyznaczono prędkość propagacji impulsu, współczynnik tłumienia oraz zbadano statystykę rozproszenia. Przedyskutowano wpływ liczby elementów rozpraszających na te wielkości.

wzorce tkanek, sygnał ultradźwiękowy, prędkość dźwięku, tłumienie, statystyka rozproszenia

The paper presents a new yield criterion for the transversal isotropy of metal sheets under plane-stress conditions which is an extension of the isotropic yield function proposed by Burzynski (Burzynski W. l928). Studium nad hipotezami Burzynski's doctoral dissertation „Study on material effort hypotheses”, Engng. Trans., 2009, t. 57, nr 3-4, s. l85-2l5). Two additional coefficients have been introduced in order to allow a better representation of plastic behavior of metal sheets. The proposed yield condition includes the influence of first invariant of the stress tensor and also the strength differential effect. The system of equations describing the sheet metal forming process is solved by algorithm using the return mapping procedure. PIane stress constraint is incorporated into the Newton-Raphson iteration loop. The proposed algorithm is verified by performing a numerical test using shell elements in commercial FEM software ABAQUS/EXPLICIT with a developed VUMAT subroutine. It is shown that the proposed approach provides the satisfactory prediction of material behavior, at least in the cases when anisotropy effects are not advanced. To perform FE simulations of cup deep drawing processes, three independent yield stresses are required. Those yield stresses can be obtained from: directional uniaxial tensile test, directional uniaxial compression test and equibiaxial compression tests. In the paper the formability of two metal sheets are analysed. First the influence of strength differential effect on the cup height profile is shown. Then the comparison between the Huber-Mises-Hencky yield condition and the proposed yield condition is presented.

bone scanner, trabecular bone, osteoporosis

In the presented work the new method of the analysis of particle distribution in the emulsion according to the sizes with the increased resolution by means of the scattering of light is considered. A significant increase in the possibilities of the proposed method is achieved due to the additional introduction into the emulsion of physically powerful ultrasonic flow and make use of the frequency-phase method of detection. Fundamental special features of procedure and some technical questions are discussed.

light scattering, ultrasonic field, Doppler effect, emulsion, distribution of particles, frequency-phase detector