The assessment of cylindrically curved rough surfaces using backscattered ultrasound

The angular distribution of the scattered acoustic field from an acoustic source is known to be directly related to the roughness of the incident surface. The authors show that backscattered ultrasound can be used to quantify the roughness of cylindrically curved surfaces. Specifically, the mean backscattered power was measured as a function of incident acoustic angle to the insonified surface. An application of this technique is the study of osteoarthritis (OA) in articular cartilage, since articular cartilage has a curved conformation and histological evaluations suggest that surface fibrillatory changes are early evidence of OA. Data from test objects and articular cartilage are presented