title: Micro-scale finite element modeling of ultrasound propagation in aluminum trabecular bone-mimicking phantoms: A comparison between numerical simulation and experimental results.
abstract: The present study investigated the accuracy of micro-scale finite element modeling for simulating broadband ultrasound propagation in water-saturated trabecular bone-mimicking phantoms. To this end, five commercially manufactured aluminum foam samples as trabecular bone-mimicking phantoms were utilized for ultrasonic immersion through-transmission experiments. Based on micro-computed tomography images of the same physical samples, three-dimensional high-resolution computational samples were generated to be implemented in the micro-scale finite element models. The finite element models employed the standard Galerkin finite element method (FEM) in time domain to simulate the ultrasonic experiments. The numerical simulations did not include energy dissipative mechanisms of ultrasonic attenuation; however, they expectedly simulated reflection, refraction, scattering, and wave mode conversion. The accuracy of the finite element simulations were evaluated by comparing the simulated ultrasonic attenuation and velocity with the experimental data. The maximum and the average relative errors between the experimental and simulated attenuation coefficients in the frequency range of 0.6-1.4 MHz were 17% and 6% respectively. Moreover, the simulations closely predicted the time-of-flight based velocities and the phase velocities of ultrasound with maximum relative errors of 20 m/s and 11 m/s respectively. The results of this study strongly suggest that micro-scale finite element modeling can effectively simulate broadband ultrasound propagation in water-saturated trabecular bone-mimicking structures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: vafaeian@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vafaeian
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: lawrence.le@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: L H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Le
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: tho.tran@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: T N H T
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: elrich@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: El-Rich
authors.affiliation: Orthodontics and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: telbialy@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: El-Bialy
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: adeeb@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Adeeb
mesh_terms: D000535:Aluminum; D001842:Bone and Bones; D008954:Models, Biological; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D013016:Sound; D014465:Ultrasonics
chemical_list: D000535:Aluminum
keywords: Aluminum foams; Broadband ultrasound attenuation; Finite element method; Trabecular bone-mimicking structures; Ultrasonic velocity