Relationship of acoustic attenuation and deep-penetrating ultrasound propagation in paraffin-based materials

Abstract

This work demonstrates an alternative, low-cost method for identifying the relationship between attenuation coefficients and the deep-penetrating propagation of ultrasound in samples with high acoustic attenuation. A decrease in attenuation coefficients of paraffin-based materials is observed with increasing gel wax concentrations. This sample set provides attenuation coefficients in the range of 1.67–7.70 dB cm⁻¹. The pure paraffin sample exhibits the highest attenuation coefficient whereas the sample with highest gel concentration shows the lowest. Deep-penetrating ultrasound propagation increases with higher gel wax concentrations. Image processing can assess depths of 31 pixels in the pure paraffin sample and 79 pixels in the sample with the highest gel concentration. By exploiting this method, it is found that attenuation coefficient plays a significant role in explaining deep-penetrating propagation of ultrasound in the sample. Therefore, this assessment technique could possibly contribute to disease diagnosis, in cases of osteoporosis, pending further investigation.