Numerical Study on Surface Roughness Measurement Based on Nonlinear Ultrasonics in Through-Transmission and Pulse-Echo Modes

Ultrasonic is one of the well-known methods for surface roughness measurement, but small roughness will only lead to a subtle variation of transmission or reflection. To explore sensitive techniques for surfaces with small roughness, nonlinear ultrasonic measurement in through-transmission and pulse-echo modes was proposed and studied based on an effective unit-cell finite element (FE) model. Higher harmonic generation in solids was realized by applying the Murnaghan hyperelastic material model. This FE model was verified by comparing the absolute value of the nonlinearity parameter with the analytical solution. Then, random surfaces with different roughness values ranging from 0 μm to 200 μm were repeatedly generated and studied in the two modes. The through-transmission mode is very suitable to measure the surfaces with roughness as small as 3% of the wavelength. The pulse-echo mode is sensitive and effective to measure the surface roughness ranging from 0.78% to 5.47% of the wavelength. This study offers a potential nondestructive testing and monitoring method for the interfaces or inner surfaces of the in-service structures.

Ultrasonic actuation of a fine-needle improves biopsy yield

Despite the ubiquitous use over the past 150 years, the functions of the current medical needle are facilitated only by mechanical shear and cutting by the needle tip, i.e. the lancet. In this study, we demonstrate how nonlinear ultrasonics (NLU) extends the functionality of the medical needle far beyond its present capability. The NLU actions were found to be localized to the proximity of the needle tip, the SonoLancet, but the effects extend to several millimeters from the physical needle boundary. The observed nonlinear phenomena, transient cavitation, fluid streams, translation of micro- and nanoparticles and atomization, were quantitatively characterized. In the fine-needle biopsy application, the SonoLancet contributed to obtaining tissue cores with an increase in tissue yield by 3–6× in different tissue types compared to conventional needle biopsy technique using the same 21G needle. In conclusion, the SonoLancet could be of interest to several other medical applications, including drug or gene delivery, cell modulation, and minimally invasive surgical procedures.

Nonlinear Ultrasonics for Early Damage Detection

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is an emerging discipline that aims at improving the management of the life cycle of industrial components. The scope of this chapter is to present the integration of nonlinear ultrasonics with the Bayesian inverse problem as an appropriate tool to estimate the updated health state of a component taking into account the associated uncertainties. This updated information can be further used by prognostics algorithms to estimate the future damage stages. Nonlinear ultrasonics allows an early detection of damage moving forward the achievement of reliable predictions, while the inverse problem emerges as a rigorous method to extract the slight signature of early damage inside the experimental signals using theoretical models. The Bayesian version of the inverse problem allows measuring the underlying uncertainties, improving the prediction process. This chapter presents the fundamentals of nonlinear ultrasonics, their practical application for SHM, and the Bayesian inverse problem as a method to unveil damage and manage uncertainty.