6.

1 Absorption and Scattering 109

The second cause of the attenuation, viz. true absorption, is a direct conversion
of sound energy into heat, for which several processes can be responsible [19, 21,
940), discussion of which would fall outside the scope of this book. Absorption can
roughly be visualized as a sort of braking effect of the oscillations of the particles,
which also makes it clear why a rapid oscillation loses more energy than a slow os-
cillation, the absorption usually increasing with the frequency, but at a rate much
slower than the scattering.
Both losses set practical limitations to the testing of materials, but in slightly
different ways. Pure absorption weakens the transmitted energy and the echoes
from both the flaw and the back wall. To counteract this effect the transmitter vol-
tage and the amplification can be increased, or the lower absorption at lower fre-
quencies can be exploited. Much more awkward, however, is the scattering because
in the echo method it not only reduces the height of the echo from both the flaw
and the back wall but in addition produces numerous echoes with different transit
times, the so-called grass, in which the true echoes may get lost. The scattering can
be compared with the effect of fog in which the driver of an automobile is blinded
by his own headlights and is unable to see clearly. This disturbance cannot be
counteracted by stepping up the transmitter voltage or the amplification because
the grass increases simultaneously. The only remedy is to use lower frequencies,
which due to the reduced beaming effect of the sound and the increasing length of
the waves and of the pulses sets a natural and insuperable limit to the detectability
of small flaws.
The sound pressure of a plane wave, which decreases only as a result of attenua-
tion, can for the purpose of calculation be written in the form of an exponential
function
(6.1)

Po and p are the sound pressures at the beginning and the end, respectively, of a
section of length d and with the attenuation coefficient (X.
In literature the attenuation coefficient (X is sometimes referred not to the
sound pressure but to the intensity. If the latter is called (XI the attenuation law of
intensity can be written

Since the intensity is proportional to the square of the sound pressure we obtain:

therefore

The natural logarithm of Eq. (6.1) gives

(Xd = In.£Q... (6.2)

p

This is the attenuation proper, or the total attenuation over the distance d, a dimen-
sionless number which is expressed in nepers (Np). The attenuation coefficient can
therefore be given in Np/cm. Following the practice in electrical measurement,