Presence of nonlinear interference effects as a source of low frequency excitation force in vibro-acoustography

The vibro-acoustography imaging method consists of forming an image of the deformability of a tissue submitted to a low frequency f(LF) stress field. This sound field can be created locally by means of a focused annular array emitting two primary beams driven at two close frequencies f(a) and f(b) = f(a) + f(LF). In the existing literature, the origin of this stress field has been identified as the low frequency radiation pressure of the two primary beams. However, this work intends to show that another contribution to this internal stress is the low frequency field distributed in the object volume and created by the nonlinear interferences of the two primary beams. This nonlinear field was calculated in the case of multiple ring annular arrays and compared with the q(LF) beam experimentally measured in a water tank. The agreement between the theoretical and experimental curves provides information on the possibility that this nonlinear effect takes place in vibro-acoustography. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.