Finite difference modeling of the ultrasonic field radiated by circular transducers

In this paper, FD formulations in cylindrical coordinates are used to model the field radiated, by a circular source, in fluid and solid media. The stability of the used schemes is controlled by a proper choice of time and space steps. Absorbing boundary conditions are introduced to satisfy the assumption of a propagation in a half space medium. In order to minimize the CPU time, calculations are limited for regions disturbed by the propagating ultrasonic pulse then the calculus zone is incremented. Some numerical results are presented to illustrate the effect of the medium nature, source vibration profiles and eventually the presence of targets in the acoustic field. A spatio-temporal description of the diffraction phenomena is given. The radiated field is interpreted in terms of plane and edge waves. For solid media, this interpretation allows the determination of the arrival times which are compared with those numerically predicted. Numerical results corresponding to fluid media are compared to those obtained by the Impulse Response Method. The good agreement obtained justifies the choice of the FDM for the modeling of the wave propagation problems.