TY - BOOK
T1 - A theoretical investigation of ultrasonic transducer design for measurement of skin
AU - Estanbouli, Y.
AU - Hayward, G.
AU - Barbenel, J.C.
PY - 2002/10
Y1 - 2002/10
N2 - Despite significant advances in ultrasonic instrumentation, accurate and repeatable measurements of skin structure and dimensions remain problematic. Skin structure is complicated and structural boundaries are non-planar and may be diffuse, inhibiting the application of inversion methods for skin thickness measurement. Coupling a transducer to the skin surface with water or aqueous gel can produce significant artefacts in thickness measurement, which may be prevented by using a rubber dry contact. This work describes a theoretical investigation of these problems, using the PZFlex finite element code as a virtual prototyping tool. Simulations show that non-planar and diffuse boundaries have significant effect on the output backscattered signals; and using of low loss rubber dry contact is possible but further work is required to determine the properties and optimum shape of the rubber interface.
AB - Despite significant advances in ultrasonic instrumentation, accurate and repeatable measurements of skin structure and dimensions remain problematic. Skin structure is complicated and structural boundaries are non-planar and may be diffuse, inhibiting the application of inversion methods for skin thickness measurement. Coupling a transducer to the skin surface with water or aqueous gel can produce significant artefacts in thickness measurement, which may be prevented by using a rubber dry contact. This work describes a theoretical investigation of these problems, using the PZFlex finite element code as a virtual prototyping tool. Simulations show that non-planar and diffuse boundaries have significant effect on the output backscattered signals; and using of low loss rubber dry contact is possible but further work is required to determine the properties and optimum shape of the rubber interface.
KW - biomedical transducers
KW - biomedical ultrasonics
KW - finite element analysis
KW - skin
KW - ultrasonic transducers
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2002.1192527
M3 - Book
SN - 0-7803-7582-3
T3 - 2002 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium
BT - A theoretical investigation of ultrasonic transducer design for measurement of skin
PB - IEEE
CY - Munich
ER -