SonicPy: a suite of programs for ultrasound pulse-echo data acquisition and analysis

ABSTRACT

Sound speed and elastic constants measurements in solids and liquids are commonly performed using the ultrasound pulse-echo technique. Recent advances have expanded the use of this technique at numerous high pressure synchrotron beamlines and offline laboratories. However, the increased experimental throughput has revealed many limitations in existing software for handling the rapid measurement and the subsequent data-reduction. We report the development of a collection of computer programs for sound speed measurements using the ultrasound pulse-echo technique, compatible with stepped multi-frequency, as well as broadband-pulse, couplant-corrected methods. The programs provide a highly interactive graphical interface, enable efficient measurement, exploration and near real-time analysis of the ultrasound data, and contain features useful for working with samples under high pressure and/or high temperature. The included analysis programs can alleviate the time required for data reduction from hours to less than a minute, allowing users to make timely and informed decisions regarding the appropriate experimental parameters.

KEYWORDS:

• Pulse echo
• ultrasound
• sound speed
• software
• high pressure
• high temperature

Acknowledgments

RH thanks Jonathan Simon, Innocent Ezenwa, Jing Yang, Anne Pommier, Rick Rowland, and Jennifer Jordan for testing the early versions of the data analysis programs and for providing useful feedback. RH thanks Maddury Somayazulu, Nenad Velisavljevic, and Jennifer Jordan for helpful discussions. The authors thank Curtis Kenney-Benson, Eric Rod, Arun Bommannavar for technical help with running the ultrasound experiments at 16-BM-B. This work was performed at HPCAT (Sector 16), Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

HPCAT operations are supported by DOE-NNSA's Office of Experimental Sciences. The Advanced Photon Source is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory [contract number DE-AC02-06CH11357]. BS is supported by the NNSA Office of Experimental Sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). LANL is operated by Triad National Security, LLC for NNSA DOE-NNSA [contract number 89233218CNA000001].