Physics CORE Review Flashcards
What is acoustic propagation?
Refers to the effects tissues causes on sounds
What are bio effects?
Effects of U/S on tissue
What are acoustic variables?
When sounds travel through a medium certain variables apply
What are four examples of acoustic variables?
- Pressure
- Density
- Particle motion
- Temperature
What are two types of density?
- Rarefactions
- Compressions
What is rarefactions?
Low density
What is compressions?
High density
What does this waveform represent in terms of pressure?
Pressure variations
Label the image
In terms of Particle motion what does this mean?
Particles vibrate back and forth
What are two thing that can be said about temperature and energy in ultrasound?
- Sound is an energy
- Energy creates heat
What are sound waves?
Mechanical waves
Sound waves require what to travel?
Medium through which to travel
Can sound waves travel through a vacuum?
No
What can sound waves carry? What can they not carry?
- Energy
- Matter
What states can Longitudinal waves support? 3
- Solids
- Liquids
- Gases
What transverse waves support?
Solids
What is mode conversion? Where can it occur?
- When one wave is converted to another wave
- May occur at a tissue bone interface
What are parameters of sound? 6
- Period
- Wavelength
- Frequency
- Propagation speed
- Amplitude
- Intensity
What is a period cycle?
One complete variation
What is period?
The time for 1 cycle to occur
What is the formula for Period?
P = 1/f
What does this image represent in terms of period?
One period
What is wavelength?
Distance for 1 complete cycle
What does this image represent in terms of wavelength?
One wavelength
What is the units for period?
microsecond
What is the units for wavelength?
mm
What is the formula for wavelength?
What is the formula and the units for frequency?
What is frequency?
The rate of complete cycles per second
What does propagation speed mean?
The speed with which a wave moves through a medium
What is the propagation speed of sound in soft tissue?
1.54 mm/us or 1540 m/s
What determines propagation speed?
Medium
What is the common units for propagation speed?
Mm/us
What is the relationship between wavelength and frequency?
Inverse relationship because
Wavelength = propagation speed / frequency
What does higher frequency mean in terms of detail and penetration?
Better detail, but less penetration
What are two variables for wave strength?
- Amplitude
- Intensity
What is amplitude in terms of waves?
Maximum variation of an acoustic variable
What is the formula for intensity?
I = P/A
What is power?
Total energy over the entire cross sectional area
What does amplitude mean? (in terms of a sound wave)
Strength of the sound wave
Amplitude is determined by what? What happens as it moves through the body?
- The sound source
- Changes as energy travels through the body
What is intensity? How does it interact with the body?
- Concentration of energy in a sound beam
- Varies as ultrasound travels through the body
What does this image represent?
Amplitude
How should we think of intensity in terms of a flashlight?
Think of a flashlight and how the mean spreads with distances but decreases with intensity.
What is the units for intensity?
mW/cm^2
What is intensity proportionate to?
1 = amplitude^2
Is intensity constant? Why?
- No
- Beam intensity is not uniform in time or space
What do we need to know where intensity is? What do we refer to?
- Need terminology to know where intensity is.
- We refer to space and temporal intensity
What are three variables of intensity?
- Space
- Time
- Within a pulse
What do we need to remember about space and intensity?
Intensity is greatest at the center and falls off near the periphery
What is intensity like in terms of listening time?
No intensity during listening phase
What is intensity like within a pulse?
Intensity starts off high at the beginning of pulse, then falls off
What do we need to consider to assess the dose of the patient?
Several intensities
What is spatial peak? Where is it normally?
- The greatest intensity across the beam
- Usually at the center
What is spatial average?
Average intensity measured over the entire beam
What is SP and SA related to? (Ratio)
Beam uniformity ratio (BUR)
What is the formula for BUR?
BUR = SP/SA
Label
What is temporal peak?
Greatest intensity found in the pulse as it passes by
What is pulse averege?
Average for all values found in a pulse
What is temporal average?
Includes the dead time between pulses where there is no intensity
What is TP and TA related by?
Duty factor?
What is Duty factor?
Time sound is ON (no units)
Label the TP and the TA?
What are three examples of intensity of pulse u/s? What are the in order of highest to lowest and biological considerations?
- SPTP: Highest
- SPTA: Biological considerations
- SATA: Lowest
What is the low to high grades of SPTA in terms of intensity? 4
- M mode
- Real time B mode
- Doppler
- Continuous wave (No dead time SPTP)
All of these depend on the depth
What propagation speed is u/s machines calibrated to? why?
- 1540 m/s or 1.54 mm/us
- Average speed in soft tissue
Label the speed?
What is the assumed speed of soft tissues? What happens because of this?
- 1540 m/s
- Artifacts occur because of this assumption, especially through fat
What is the ranged equation used to calculate? (Position)
Position of a reflector
What is the average speed of sound in the range equation?
1.54 mm/us
What is the range equation formula?
D = (1/2)(C)(T)
D = distance
C = Speed (usually sound)
T = Time (1/2 because time is there and back)
What is the 1cm rule?
1 cm (there and back) requires 13 microseconds (us)
The 1cm rule only applies in what tissue?
Soft tissue only
How can we prove the 1cm rule?
- Substitute 1.54 mm/us into the range equation
- (2)(1)/ (0.154cm/us) = 13 us
- Result is 13 us/cm round trip time
What is Pulsed repetition frequency (PRF)?
The number of pulses occurring in 1 sec
Diagnostic probes emit how many pulses/sec?
A few thousand
In terms of PRF, common units are what?
KHz
What does this image represent?
PRF
What does Pulsed repetition period (PRP) stand for?
The time from the beginning of one pulse to the beginning of the next (in seconds)
What does this image represent?
Label the image
What does Duty factor mean?
The fraction of time that pulsed ultrasound is on
Duty facto is usually expressed how?
Percentage
What is the duty factor of CW?
100% of the time
Higher PRF increase duty factor why?
There is less dead time between pulses
What does Duty factor increase with?
Increased pulse duration and PRF
What is the formula for Duty factor?(In terms of pulses, not beams)
Duty factor = Pulsed duration/ pulsed repetition period
What is spatial pulse length?
The length of a pulse from front to back
What is the formula for spatial pulse length?
Label this waveform
What would increase SPL?
Decreased frequency and increased wavelength
What decreases SPL?
Decreasing the number of cycles
Why is SPL important?
SPL is important to our image resolution
What does decreasing SPL mean?
Increases resolution
What is the formula for PRF?
What is pulse duration?
The time interval for one pulse
What is the formula for pulse duration?
PD = (# of cycles)(period)
In terms of acoustic velocity, sound velocity is determined by what?
Medium, which depends on the density and compressibility of the medium
What is density?
The mass of an medium per unit volume or concentration of matter
If all other factors remain constant, an increase in density will do what?
Impede the rate at which sound travels (More mass requires more energy for particle motion)
What does compressibility indicate?
Fractional decrease in volume when pressure is applied to the material
What is the compressibility of slower velocities?
Easy compressible materials
What does dense material mean in terms of compressibility and velocity?
Low compressibility (bone) and increased velocity
What is bulk modulus?
The reciprocal of compressibility
What is the negative ratio of stress and strain?
Bulk modulus
As bulk modulus increases, compressibility and velocity does what?
- Compressibility decreases
- Velocity increases
What is bulk modulus usually referred to?
Stiffness
What is elasticity?
Ability of an object to return to its original shape and volume after a force is no longer acting on it
How doe U/S waves cause elastic deformation?
By separation and compression of molecules
Increased density affects velocity how?
Decreases velocity
Increased stiffness does what to velocity?
Increases it
A change in density is usually coupled with a larger change in what?
Compressibility
Between compressibility and density which one is the dominating factor?
Compressibility
As temperature increases, what happens to the velocity of sound?
It increases
What is the variation of temperature in the human body?
Little variation.
Phantoms must be kept in what temperature conditions? Why?
Room temperatures, change will alter sound velocity
What is attenuation?
Weakening of the sound beam as it travels
What is three reasons that attenuation is important?
- Limits our imaging depth
- Need to compensate for it
- Can be useful in diagnosis
Attenuation varies with what three things?
- Nature of the tissue
- Frequency of the ultrasound
- Depth
What is the rule of thumb for dB in terms of dB drops and intensity? 2
- 3dB drop = 1/2 original intensity
- 10dB drop = 0.1 original intensity
What is the definition of attenuation coefficient?
The amount of attenuation that occurs with each one centimetre travelled
What is the attenuation coefficient units?
DB/CM
In soft tissue there are 0.5 dB of attenuation in one centimetre for for every what?
1 MHz
Attenuation coefficient = what?
1/2 frequency
What is the formula for total attenuation?
Total attenuation coefficient x path length (CM)
Or soft tissue
1/2 MHZ x Path length (cm)
How is frequency and attenuation related?
They are proportional
As frequency increases what happens to attenuation?
It increase and depth of penetration decreases
What is a half valve layer?
Thickness of material that will reduce the intensity to half its original value
3dB rule
Mechanisms of attenuation include what? 5
- Absorption
- Scatter
- Beam divergence
- Reflection
- Refraction
What happens to sound in absorption?
Conversion of sound energy into heat energy
What is the most dominant factor in attenuation?
Absorption
What are three factors that influence absorption? 3
- Frequency
- Viscosity
- Relaxation time on molecules
How does viscosity affect absorption?
Increased viscosity provides greater resistance and increased attenuation
How does relaxation time affect absorption?
If molecules can’t get back to their original position before the next compression phase, then more energy is required to stop the molecule and reverse its direction again. This produces more heat.
In terms of frequency and absorption, if frequency increases what happens? 2
- The molecules must move more often, creating more heat from drag
- Decreased time available for molecules to recover during relaxation process
In terms of frequency and absorption, what happens as the number of cycles per second increases? What does this mean?
- The time between rarefactions decrease and absorption increases
- If frequency increase, absorption increases