Experimental Validation of SPICE Modeling Diffraction Effects in a Pulse–Echo Ultrasonic System

During its propagation in a given medium, the ultrasonic wave is disturbed by several phenomena that affect the waveform in both time and frequency domains. Among these phenomena, the most important are absorption, nonlinearity, and diffraction. The aim of this brief is to simulate in the SPICE-like simulator the diffraction losses in a pulse-echo ultrasonic system. A set of Gaussian beams is used to simulate the radiated field, allowing us to analytically deduce the exact diffraction losses instead of experimentally measuring them. This permits us to avoid errors due to experiments and waste of time. Our study is made for both focused and unfocused sources in three different media, namely, distilled water, glycerol, and methanol. To prove the validity of the SPICE model, a comparison is made between simulation and measurements, and the results show satisfactory agreement.