Steven Freear

This work follows on from studies carried out by Jiles and Atherton on magnetic hysteresis and on the magnetomechanical effect. The Jiles–Atherton equation, which models the rate of change of magnetization with respect to stress, was solved numerically in the forward and reverse directions for stress up to 90 MPa, suggesting that stressing carbon steel will cause a lasting change in the magnetization of the sample. This was confirmed experimentally by measuring the B-field in proximity to samples of C45 steel while undergoing tensile stress, with the pattern of magnetization suggesting that the magnetic domains reorient themselves in the geomagnetic field when stressing loosens their pinning. A further experiment on two samples confirms this, with the B-field around the samples showing strong changes according to their orientation in the geomagnetic field at the time of the stressing. This work has relevance to the non-destructive testing of steel structures such as pipelines, and the relevance of the experiments to this work is considered, as well as future prospects.

In ultrasound B-mode imaging, the axial resolution (AR) is commonly determined by the duration or bandwidth of an excitation signal. A shorter-duration pulse will produce better resolution compared to a longer one but with compromised penetration depth. Instead of relying on the pulse duration or bandwidth to improve the AR, an alternative method termed filtered multiply and sum (FMAS) has been introduced in our previous work. For spatial-compounding, FMAS uses the autocorrelation technique as used in filtered-delay multiply and sum (FDMAS), instead of conventional averaging. FMAS enables a higher frame rate and less computational complexity than conventional plane-wave compound imaging beamformed with delay and sum (DAS) and FDMAS. Moreover, it can provide an improved contrast ratio and AR. In previous work, no explanation was given on how FMAS was able to improve the AR. Thus, in this work, we discuss in detail the theory behind the proposed FMAS algorithm and how it is able to improve the spatial resolution mainly in the axial direction. Simulations, experimental phantom measurements and in vivo studies were conducted to benchmark the performance of the proposed method. We also demonstrate how the suggested new algorithm may be used in a practical biomedical imaging application. The balloon snake active contour segmentation technique was applied to the ultrasound B-mode image of a common carotid artery produced with FMAS. The suggested method is capable of reducing the number of iterations for the snake to settle on the region-of-interest contour, accelerating the segmentation process.