Zine El Abiddine Fellah

Measuring the porosity and the tortuosity of porous materials via reflected waves at oblique incidence.

An ultrasonic reflectivity method is proposed for measuring porosity and tortuosity of porous materials having a rigid frame. Porosity is the relative fraction by volume of the air contained within a material. Tortuosity is a geometrical parameter which intervenes in the description of the inertial effects between the fluid filled the porous material and its structure at high frequency range. It is generally easy to evaluate the tortuosity from transmitted waves, this is not the case for porosity because of its weak sensitivity in transmitted mode. The proposed method is based on measurement of reflected wave by the first interface of a slab of rigid porous material. This method is obtained from a temporal model of the direct and inverse scattering problems for the propagation of transient ultrasonic waves in a homogeneous isotropic slab of porous material having a rigid frame [Z. E. A. Fellah, M. Fellah, W. Lauriks, and C. Depollier, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 61 (2003)]. Reflection and transmission scattering operators for a slab of porous material are derived from the responses of the medium to an incident acoustic pulse at oblique incidence. The porosity and tortuosity are determined simultaneously from the measurements of reflected waves at two oblique incidence angles. Experimental and numerical validation results of this method are presented.

Acoustic backscattering form function of absorbing cylinder targets (L)

A new expression of the backscattering form function |f∞(k0a,θ)| for cylindrical targets, suspended in an inviscid fluid in a plane incident sound field, is presented. The theory is modified to include the effects of absorption of shear and compressional waves in viscoelastic materials. The numerical results presented show how damping effect due to ultrasound absorption influences the cylinder’s material properties.

Acoustic wave propagation in a macroscopically inhomogeneous porous medium saturated by a fluid

The equations of motion in a macroscopically inhomogeneous porous medium saturated by a fluid are derived. As a first verification of the validity of these equations, a two-layer rigid frame porous system considered as one single porous layer with a sudden change in physical properties is studied. A simple wave equation is derived and solved for this system. The reflection and transmission coefficients are calculated numerically using a wave splitting-Greens function approach (WS-GF). The reflected and transmitted wave time histories are also simulated. Experimental results obtained for materials saturated by air are compared to the results given by this approach and to those of the classical transfer matrix method (TMM).

Axial acoustic radiation force of progressive cylindrical diverging waves on a rigid and a soft cylinder immersed in an ideal compressible fluid

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION Previous works investigating the radiation force of diverging spherical progressive waves incident upon spherical particles have demonstrated the direction of reversal of the force when the particle is subjected to a curved wave-front. In this communication, the analysis is extended to the case of diverging cylindrical progressive waves incident upon a rigid or a soft cylinder in a non-viscous fluid with explicit calculations for the radiation force function (which is the radiation force per unit energy density and unit cross-sectional surface) not shown in [F.G. Mitri, Ultrasonics 50 (2010) 620-627]. METHOD A closed-form solution presented previously in [F.G. Mitri, Ultrasonics 50 (2010) 620-627] is used to plot the radiation force function with particular emphasis on the difference from the results of incident plane progressive waves versus the size parameter ka (k is the wave number and a is the cylinders radius) and the distance of the cylinder from the acoustic source r(0). RESULTS Radiation force function calculations for the rigid cylinder unexpectedly reveal that under specific conditions determined by the frequency of the acoustic field, the radius of the cylinder, as well as the distance to the acoustic source, the force becomes attractive (negative force). In addition, the numerical results show that the radiation force on a rigid cylinder does not generally obey the inverse-distance law with respect to the distance from the source. CONCLUSION AND POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS These results suggest that it may be possible, under specific conditions, to pull a cylindrical structure back toward the acoustic source using progressive cylindrical diverging waves. They may also provide a means to predict the radiation force required to manipulate non-destructively a single cylindrical structure. Potential applications include the design of a new generation of acoustic tweezers operating using a single beam of progressive waves (in contrast to the traditional version of acoustical tweezers in which an acoustic standing wave field is produced using two counter-propagating acoustic fields) for investigations in the field of flow cytometry, particle manipulation and entrapment.

Transient ultrasound propagation in porous media using Biot theory and fractional calculus: application to human cancellous bone.

A temporal model based on the Biot theory is developed to describe the transient ultrasonic propagation in porous media with elastic structure, in which the viscous exchange between fluid and structure are described by fractional derivatives. The fast and slow waves obey a fractional wave equation in the time domain. The solution of Biots equations in time depends on the Green functions of each of the waves (fast and slow), and their fractional derivatives. The reflection and transmission operators for a slab of porous materials are derived in the time domain, using calculations in the Laplace domain. Their analytical expressions, depend on Greens function of fast and slow waves. Experimental results for slow and fast waves transmitted through human cancellous bone samples are given and compared with theoretical predictions.

Acoustic wave propagation and internal fields in rigid frame macroscopically inhomogeneous porous media

A wave propagation model in macroscopically inhomogeneous porous media is derived from the alternative Biot’s theory of 1962. As a first application, the wave equation is reduced and solved in the case of rigid frame inhomogeneous porous materials. The pressure field, as well as the reflection and transmission coefficients, are obtained numerically using a wave splitting and “transmission” Green’s functions approach (WS-TGF). To validate both the wave equation and the method of resolution at normal and oblique incidence, results obtained by the WS-TGF method are compared to those calculated by the classical transfer matrix method and to experimental measurements for a known two-layered porous material, considered as a single inhomogeneous layer. Discussions are then given of the reflection and transmission coefficients for various inhomogeneity profiles as well as of the internal pressure field.

Investigating the absolute phase information in acoustic wave resonance scattering.

The aim of this work is to investigate the absolute phase information in resonance acoustic scattering by spheres and cylinders and place this work in the broader context of scattering in which the properties of the magnitude and (processed) phase have been examined in a more general way than in the classical resonance scattering theory (RST). Here, comparisons are made between the classical and modified RST formalisms of acoustic resonance scattering. Experimental and theoretical backscattering form functions are obtained and discussed. It is shown that the magnitude and processed (unwrapped) phase can be correctly obtained through the classical RST, suggesting that the modified RST formalism offers little new practical advantage. Furthermore, the absolute phase is shown to be very sensitive to objects resonances, suggesting that the unwrapped phase may be considered as an efficient tool, along with the magnitude information, to carry out remote (active) classification of targets in underwater acoustics applications. The combination of absolute phase information with the magnitude data offers a complementary advantage in the identification of resonances from cylinders and spheres.

The direct and inverse problems of an air-saturated porous cylinder submitted to acoustic radiation.

Gas-saturated porous skeleton materials such as geomaterials, polymeric and metallic foams, or biomaterials are fundamental in a diverse range of applications, from structural materials to energy technologies. Most polymeric foams are used for noise control applications and knowledge of the manner in which the energy of sound waves is dissipated with respect to the intrinsic acoustic properties is important for the design of sound packages. Foams are often employed in the audible, low frequency range where modeling and measurement techniques for the recovery of physical parameters responsible for energy loss are still few. Accurate acoustic methods of characterization of porous media are based on the measurement of the transmitted and/or reflected acoustic waves by platelike specimens at ultrasonic frequencies. In this study we develop an acoustic method for the recovery of the material parameters of a rigid-frame, air-saturated polymeric foam cylinder. A dispersion relation for sound wave propagation in the porous medium is derived from the propagation equations and a model solution is sought based on plane-wave decomposition using orthogonal cylindrical functions. The explicit analytical solution equation of the scattered field shows that it is also dependent on the intrinsic acoustic parameters of the porous cylinder, namely, porosity, tortuosity, and flow resistivity (permeability). The inverse problem of the recovery of the flow resistivity and porosity is solved by seeking the minima of the objective functions consisting of the sum of squared residuals of the differences between the experimental and theoretical scattered field data.

Instantaneous axial force of a high-order Bessel vortex beam of acoustic waves incident upon a rigid movable sphere.

The present investigation examines the instantaneous force resulting from the interaction of an acoustical high-order Bessel vortex beam (HOBVB) with a rigid sphere. The rigid sphere case is important in fluid dynamics applications because it perfectly simulates the interaction of instantaneous sound waves in a reduced gravity environment with a levitated spherical liquid soft drop in air. Here, a closed-form solution for the instantaneous force involving the total pressure field as well as the Bessel beam parameters is obtained for the case of progressive, stationary and quasi-stationary waves. Instantaneous force examples for progressive waves are computed for both a fixed and a movable rigid sphere. The results show how the instantaneous force per unit cross-sectional surface and unit pressure varies versus the dimensionless frequency ka (k is the wave number in the fluid medium and a is the spheres radius), the half-cone angle β and the order m of the HOBVB. It is demonstrated here that the instantaneous force is determined only for (m,n) = (0,1) (where n is the partial-wave number), and vanishes for m>0 because of symmetry. In addition, the instantaneous force and normalized amplitude velocity results are computed and compared with those of a rigid immovable (fixed) sphere. It is shown that they differ significantly for ka values below 5. The proposed analysis may be of interest in the analysis of instantaneous forces on spherical particles for particle manipulation, filtering, trapping and drug delivery. The presented solutions may also serve as a method for comparison to other solutions obtained by strictly numerical or asymptotic approaches.

Mechanism of the quasi-zero axial acoustic radiation force experienced by elastic and viscoelastic spheres in the field of a quasi-Gaussian beam and particle tweezing.

The present analysis investigates the (axial) acoustic radiation force induced by a quasi-Gaussian beam centered on an elastic and a viscoelastic (polymer-type) sphere in a nonviscous fluid. The quasi-Gaussian beam is an exact solution of the source free Helmholtz wave equation and is characterized by an arbitrary waist w₀ and a diffraction convergence length known as the Rayleigh range z(R). Examples are found where the radiation force unexpectedly approaches closely to zero at some of the elastic spheres resonance frequencies for kw₀≤1 (where this range is of particular interest in describing strongly focused or divergent beams), which may produce particle immobilization along the axial direction. Moreover, the (quasi)vanishing behavior of the radiation force is found to be correlated with conditions giving extinction of the backscattering by the quasi-Gaussian beam. Furthermore, the mechanism for the quasi-zero force is studied theoretically by analyzing the contributions of the kinetic, potential and momentum flux energy densities and their density functions. It is found that all the components vanish simultaneously at the selected ka values for the nulls. However, for a viscoelastic sphere, acoustic absorption degrades the quasi-zero radiation force.