An instrument for the measurement of acoustic pulse velocity and attenuation in a solid probe

The instrument measures the velocity and attenuation of longitudinal and torsional acoustic pulses in thin rods. The pulses are generated in a nickel tube transducer. The main uses of the instrument have been found to be in the metallurgical field where crystal lattice changes may be monitored to temperatures limited only by the melting point of the specimen. This is possible because the transducer and the measuring equipment can be remote from the specimen. A propsed use is the measurement of the fuel temperature of a nuclear reactor. The temperature is derived from the velocity of longitudinal pulses in a molybdenum probe.