Ultrasonic couplants for acoustic microscopy of low speed materials

V S Ardebili; A N Sinclair; J K Spelt

doi:10.1109/58.585200

Ultrasonic couplants for acoustic microscopy of low speed materials

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 1997;44(1):102-7. doi: 10.1109/58.585200.

Authors

V S Ardebili¹, A N Sinclair, J K Spelt

Affiliation

¹ Dept. of Mech. Eng., Toronto Univ., Ont.

PMID: 18244107
DOI: 10.1109/58.585200

Abstract

A method is presented for estimating the compression wave velocities of organic fluids, based only on their density and molecular properties. The method is applied to a search for very low-speed ultrasonic couplants, suitable for 250 MHz acoustic microscopy studies of epoxy materials. Experimental measurements confirmed that acoustic velocity could be predicted within 3% for simple fluorine-containing organic compounds, and within 10% for those with a more complex molecular structure. The compound 2-dichloropentafluoropropane (C(3 )HCl(2)F(5)), with a compression wave velocity of C(L)=638 m/s and acceptably low attenuation coefficient, was identified as a good coupling agent for acoustic microscopy studies of low speed materials.