Ultrasonic beam models: Simplification of a computational method

Computational methods are commonly used in ultrasound to numerically model the wave fields radiated by ultrasonic transducers. These ultrasonic transducers have different shapes and sizes, and operate at different center frequencies. One of the methods currently in use for evaluating transducer wave fields is the edge element method. This method discretizes the transducer surface into a web of triangular and trapezoidal sources of different sizes (resembling a spider web). The different sizes and shapes of the sources make the numerical computation complicated and time consuming. The approach discussed in this paper looks to simplify the original discretization technique by dividing the transducer surface into equilateral triangles of uniform size. Using the new discretization technique, wave fields can be predicted at least 7 times faster when compared to original discretization technique, resulting in negligible effects on the accuracy of the prediction.