TY - JOUR
T1 - Simple Sound Speed Measurement Method for Liquids and Castable Phantom Materials
AU - Yu, Wanwei
AU - Chen, Nelson
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received April 20, 2020; accepted August 27, 2020. Date of publication September 7, 2020; date of current version November 24, 2020. This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan) under Grant MOST105-2221-E-009-094 and in part by National Chiao Tung University under Grant 108W205. The Associate Editor coordinating the review process was Dr. V. R. Singh. (Corresponding author: Nelson G. Chen.) Wanwei Yu is with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan (e-mail: [email protected]).
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - The speed of sound c is an important property of materials and fluids. Ultrasonic imaging is based on the assumed values of c, and the characterization of various phantom materials includes measurements of their c values. Measurements of c, to date, have required specialized setups that are not always readily available. The development of a simple alternative allows laboratories to measure c with a minimum of specialized equipment. In this article, a method using only a polypropylene (or other plastic) test tube, fishing line, a level, a sewing or suture needle, sodium chloride, and a conventional ultrasonic B-mode imager is described that allows one to measure c readily. The measurement is based on the difference between the apparent and actual distances separating two fishing line targets embedded within a test tube. The liquid or gel being measured is poured into the test tube and B-mode ultrasonic images are obtained using a conventional clinical imager. This method was tested on seven samples of saline solutions with varying salt concentrations, pure ethanol, and a tissue-mimicking gel to verify its accuracy over a broad range (1144-1700 m/s) of reference values. Sound speed measurements were, on average, 100.4% ± 0.86% of published values. No single measurement had a deviation exceeding 2.4%. The measurement of sound speed is simplified and may be accurately performed with minimal equipment.
AB - The speed of sound c is an important property of materials and fluids. Ultrasonic imaging is based on the assumed values of c, and the characterization of various phantom materials includes measurements of their c values. Measurements of c, to date, have required specialized setups that are not always readily available. The development of a simple alternative allows laboratories to measure c with a minimum of specialized equipment. In this article, a method using only a polypropylene (or other plastic) test tube, fishing line, a level, a sewing or suture needle, sodium chloride, and a conventional ultrasonic B-mode imager is described that allows one to measure c readily. The measurement is based on the difference between the apparent and actual distances separating two fishing line targets embedded within a test tube. The liquid or gel being measured is poured into the test tube and B-mode ultrasonic images are obtained using a conventional clinical imager. This method was tested on seven samples of saline solutions with varying salt concentrations, pure ethanol, and a tissue-mimicking gel to verify its accuracy over a broad range (1144-1700 m/s) of reference values. Sound speed measurements were, on average, 100.4% ± 0.86% of published values. No single measurement had a deviation exceeding 2.4%. The measurement of sound speed is simplified and may be accurately performed with minimal equipment.
KW - Biomedical imaging phantoms
KW - biomedical materials
KW - materials testing
KW - ultrasonic imaging
KW - ultrasonic variables measurement
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096751308&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TIM.2020.3022136
DO - 10.1109/TIM.2020.3022136
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85096751308
SN - 0018-9456
VL - 70
JO - IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
JF - IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
M1 - 9187231
ER -