Table of contents

The Anglo-French Physical Acoustics Conference (AFPAC) had its 14^th annual meeting, for the fourth time, at the Villa Clythia, Fréjus, France, from 14^th to 16^th January 2015. This series of meetings is a collaboration between the Physical Acoustics Group (PAG) of the Institute of Physics and the Groupe d'Acoustique Physique, Sous-marine et UltraSonore (GAPSUS) of the Société Française d'Acoustique.

The Villa manager and his staff worked hard to give attendees the opportunity to spend these three days of intensive work in a very convivial atmosphere.

Four sessions were organized during the three days of the conference, each introduced by an invited talk. As usual (and we could say, as expected), a great variety of subjects were discussed in the 30 presentations that were given, covering various applications and methodologies of physical acoustics, including theoretical and experimental works.

This variety can also be seen when considering the titles of presentations given by our four invited speakers: Dr. Valerie J. Pinfield (Loughborough University), Ultrasonic propagation in fluid-based dispersions of particles - review, challenges and opportunities, Dr. Vincent Tournat (Université du Maine) Wave Processes in Metaporous Materials and Resonant Structures for Improving Sound Absorption, Prof. Christophe Aristegui (Université de Bordeaux) Design of soft 3D acoustic metamaterials, and Prof. I. David Abrahams (Manchester University), Application of Matched Asymptotic Expansions to Problems in Acoustics.

The 2014 Bob Chivers prize for the best paper in physical acoustics produced by a PhD student was awarded to Dr. Gim Hwa Chua, for his paper entitled "Use of clicks resembling those of the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) to improve target discrimination in bubbly water with biased pulse summation sonar IET Radar", published in Sonar and Navigation.

All papers published in this volume of Journal of Physics: Conference Series have been peer reviewed through processes administered by the proceedings Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing.

Spatially resolved acoustic spectroscopy (SRAS) is a laser ultrasonic technique that shows qualitative contrast between grains of different orientation, illustrating the sensitivity of acoustic waves to the material structure. The technique has been improved significantly on determining the full orientation of multigrain cubic metals, by comparing the measured surface acoustic wave (SAW) velocity to a pre-calculated model.

In this paper we demonstrate the ability of this technique to determine the orientation of hexagonal structure crystals, such as magnesium and titanium based alloys. Because of the isotropy of the SAW velocity on the basal plane (0001) of hexagonal crystals, the slowness surface is shown as a circle. As the plane moves from (0001) towards (110) or towards (100), the slowness surface gradually turns into an oval. These acoustic properties increase the difficulty in orientation determination.

The orientation results of a grade 1 commercially pure titanium by SRAS is presented, with comparison with electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) results. Due to the nature of SAWs on hexagonal structure crystals, only the results of Euler angles 1 and 2 are discussed. The error between SRAS and EBSD is also investigated.

The scattering of elastic waves from an obstacle is of great interest in ultrasonic Non Destructive Evaluation (NDE). There exist two main scattering phenomena: specular reflection and diffraction. This paper is especially focused on possible improvements of the Geometrical Theory of Diffraction (GTD), one classical method used for modelling diffraction from scatterer edges. GTD notably presents two important drawbacks: it is theoretically valid for a canonical infinite edge and not for a finite one and presents discontinuities around the direction of specular reflection. In order to address the first drawback, a 3D hybrid method using both GTD and Huygens secondary sources has been developed to deal with finite flaws. ITD (Incremental Theory of Diffraction), a method developed in electromagnetism, has also been developed in elastodynamics to deal with small flaws. Experimental validation of these methods has been performed. As to the second drawback, a GTD uniform correction, the UTD (Uniform Theory of Diffraction) has been developed in the view of designing a generic model able to correctly simulate both specular reflection and diffraction. A comparison has been done between UTD numerical results and UAT (Uniform Asymptotic Theory of Diffraction) which is another uniform solution of GTD.

Mechanical imaging and characterisation of biological cells has been a subject of interest for the last twenty years. Ultrasonic imaging based on the scanning acoustic microscope (SAM) and mechanical probing have been extensively reported. Large acoustic attenuation at high frequencies and the use of conventional piezo-electric transducers limit the operational frequency of a SAM. This limitation results in lower resolution compared to an optical microscope. Direct mechanical probing in the form of applied stress by contacting probes causes stress to cells and exhibits poor depth resolution. More recently, laser ultrasound has been reported to detect ultrasound in the GHz range via Brillouin oscillations on biological cells. This technique offers a promising new high resolution acoustic cell imaging technique. In this work, we propose, design and apply a thin-film based opto-acoustic transducer for the detection in transmission of Brillouin oscillations on cells. The transducer is used to generate acoustic waves, protect the cells from laser radiation and enhance signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Experimental traces are presented in water films as well as images of the Brillouin frequency of phantom and fixed 3T3 fibroblast cells.

Elastic guided waves (GW) are used in various non-destructive testing (NDT) methods to inspect plate-like structures, generated by finite-sized transducers. Thanks to GW long range propagation, using a few transducers at permanent positions can provide a full coverage of the plate. Transducer diffraction effects take place, leading to complex radiated fields. Optimizing transducers positioning makes it necessary to accurately predict the GW field radiated by a transducer. Fraunhofer-like approximations applied to GW in isotropic homogeneous plates lead to fast and accurate field computation but can fail when applied to multi-layered anisotropic composite plates, as shown by some examples given.

Here, a model is proposed for composite plates, based on the computation of the approximate Green's tensor describing modal propagation from a source point, with account of caustics typically seen when strong anisotropy is concerned. Modal solutions are otherwise obtained by the Semi-Analytic Finite Element method. Transducer diffraction effects are accounted for by means of an angular integration over the transducer surface as seen from the calculation point, that is, over energy paths involved, which are mode-dependent. The model is validated by comparing its predictions with those computed by means of a full convolution integration of the Green's tensor with the source over transducer surface. Examples given concern disk and rectangular shaped transducers commonly used in NDT.

There has been recent interest in the transmission of acoustic signals along granular chains of spherical beads to produce waveforms of relevance to biomedical ultrasound applications. Hertzian contact between adjacent beads can introduce different harmonic content into the signal as it propagates. This transduction mechanism has the potential to be of use in both diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound applications, and is the object of the study presented here. Although discrete dynamics models of this behaviour exist, a more comprehensive solution must be sought if changes in shape and deformation of individual beads are to be considered. Thus, the finite element method was used to investigate the dynamics of a granular chain of six, 1 mm diameter chrome steel spherical beads excited at one end using a sinusoidal displacement signal at 73 kHz. Output from this model was compared with the solution provided by the discrete dynamics model, and good overall agreement obtained. In addition, it was able to resolve the complex dynamics of the granular chain, including the multiple collisions which occur. It was demonstrated that under dynamic excitation conditions, the inability of discrete mechanics models to account for elastic deformation of the beads when these lose contact, could lead to discrepancies with experimental observations.

Prostate cancer remains as a major healthcare issue. Limitations in current diagnosis and treatment monitoring techniques imply that there is still a need for improvements. The efficacy of prostate cancer diagnosis is still low, generating under and over diagnoses. High intensity focused ultrasound ablation is an emerging treatment modality, which enables the noninvasive ablation of pathogenic tissue. Clinical trials are being carried out to evaluate its longterm efficacy as a focal treatment for prostate cancer. Successful treatment of prostate cancer using non-invasive modalities is critically dependent on accurate diagnostic means and is greatly benefited by a real-time monitoring system. While magnetic resonance imaging remains the gold standard for prostate imaging, its wider implementation for prostate cancer diagnosis remains prohibitively expensive. Conventional ultrasound is currently limited to guiding biopsy. Elastography techniques are emerging as a promising real-time imaging method, as cancer nodules are usually stiffer than adjacent healthy prostatic tissue. In this paper, a new transurethral approach is proposed, using shear waves for diagnosis and ablation monitoring of prostate cancer. A finite-difference time domain model is developed for studying the feasibility of the method, and an inverse problem technique based on genetic algorithms is proposed for reconstructing the location, size and stiffness parameters of the tumour. Preliminary results indicate that the use of shear waves for diagnosis and monitoring ablation of prostate cancer is feasible.