Velocity of ultrasound in solid state material

Principle

The velocity of sound in acrylics shall be determined by time of flight reflection technique with an ultrasonic echoscope. The measurements are done by reflection method, on three cylinders of different length. Two measurement series are carried out with ultrasonic probes of different frequencies.

Benefits

• Introductory experiment for echoscopy applications
• Experiment can be easily extended to perform A-scan and B-scan experiments
• With further extensions more advanced experiments with medical and material sciences context can be performed

Tasks

1. Measure the length of the three cylinders with the caliper.
2. Determine the time of flight of the ultrasonic reflection pulses for the three cylinders and the two ultrasonic probes.
3. Calculate the sound velocities, probe delays and use the two mean values obtained to calculate the cylinder length.

Learning objectives

• Sound velocity
• Propagation of ultrasonic waves
• Time of flight
• Ultrasonic echography
• Thickness measurement
• Probe delay