Imaging of acoustic surface wave slowness

An experimental method has been devised for imaging the acoustic surface wave slowness (inverse of the phase velocity) in anisotropic solids. This technique utilizes a specially designed broadband, line-focus ultrasonic transducer to sense the leaky surface waves as well as leaky pseudosurface waves emanating from a solid immersed in water. By rotating such a transducer about its symmetric axis normal to the solid surface, the orientation-dependent time wave forms can be obtained. These wave forms are readily transformed into a surface wave slowness image with a simple algorithm.