As part of the NPL/UCL/Oxford microbubble trapping collaborative project a paper Theoretical characterisation of the radial and translational motion of coated microbubbles under acoustic excitation has been published as C. J. Harfield et al, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser 457 012001 (2013).
From the abstract: Ultrasound contrast agents, in the form of coated microbubbles, are a
powerful tool in current diagnostic imaging. Given their sensitive
dynamic response they also have the potential to be used for
quantitative measurements of the properties of the surrounding tissue (e.g.
percentage perfusion or blood pressure). For this potential to be
realised, however, the theoretical descriptions of bubble behaviour, in
particular the constitutive equations for the microbubble shell, need to
be improved and a method needs to be developed for the accurate
characterisation of individual bubbles. In this paper the first steps
are taken towards deriving a complete model for the coupled radial and
translational motion of a coated bubble. It is then shown that with this
model the bubble can be characterised by a unique set of parameters
describing the bubble shell corresponding to its viscous and elastic
response. This uniqueness will enable the model to be used to interpret
experimental data and quantify these parameters for which accurate
values are currently lacking but which are critical to predicting bubble
response and hence enabling advanced diagnostic applications.
