DOPPLER BASICS

DR.PRIYATAMJEE BUSSARY
* Sound waves are longitudinal waves.

* The term longitudinal wave means that, the motion of particles in the
medium is parallel to the direction of wave propagation.
Velocity of sound is independent of frequency & depends primarily on
Physical make up of the material through which sound is being transmitted.

Imp characteristics of transmitting medium are 1. COMPRESSIBILITY

2. DENSITY

GAS LIQUID SOLID

 Velocity of sound in some Biological Materials
Material Velocity of Sound Impedance (Rayl x 10 -6)

Air 330 0.0004

Fat 1450 1.38

Water 1480 1.48

Average Human ST 1540 1.63

Brain 1540 NA

Liver 1550 1.65

Kidney 1560 1.62

Blood 1570 1.61

Muscle 1580 1.7

Lens of eye 1620 NA

Skull Bone 4080 7.8

* Ultrasound by definition has a frequency of greater than
20,000 cycles per sec.

* Audible sound has a frequency between 15 – 20,000 cycles per sec.

* The sonic beams that we use in diagnostic imaging have

frequencies from 10,00,000 to 20,00,000 cycles per sec.
* Transducer is a device that can convert one form of energy
into another.

* Ultrasonic transducers are used to convert an electric signal

into ultrasonic energy that can be transmitted into tissues,
& to convert ultrasonic energy reflected back from the tissues
into an electric signal.
Pulse Echo Principle

PULSE ECHO
Based upon the pulse-echo principle occurring with
ultrasound piezoelectric crystals, ultrasound transducers
convert:

– Electricity into sound = pulse

– Sound into electricity = echo
 PIEZOELECTRIC CRYSTAL
* Piezoelectric effect – Certain materials are such that ,the
application of an electric field causes a change in their physical
dimensions, & vice versa.( first described in 1880)

The reverse of the piezoelectric effect converts the

energy back to its original form.
 * Piezoelectric crystals are made up of innumerable dipoles arranged
in a geometric pattern.

*When an electric field is applied, the dipoles realign themselves &

in the process there is a mild change in the dimension of the crystal.

* Voltage between the plating electrodes produces the electric field, which
inturn causes the crystal to change shape.
* Piezoelectric crystals behave as a series of vibrating points.

* Wave fronts are not uniform close to the crystal.

*The distance at which the waves become synchronous depends

on their wavelengths.
* Between pulses, the transducer serves as a receiver.

* Commonly used rate is 1000 pulses /sec.( range of between 500 – 3000)

* At this rate the total time available for each pulse is 0.001 sec.
Approx one millionth of a sec is devoted to transmission, so the transducer
is a receiver almost thousand times longer than it is a transmitter.
 * Intensity of ultrasound varies along the length of the beam.

* Parallel component is near zone or Fresnel zone.

* Diverging portion of the beam is far zone or fraunhofer zone.

≠ Near zone increases in length with increasing frequency.

≠ Near zone increases in length with larger transducers.
X = R2/W
 High frequency
Low frequency
Depth resolution is better
Fresnel zone is longer More penetration

Less penetration
Tissue absorption increases with increasing frequency
1.Reflection

2.Refraction

3. Absorption
As sound waves pass from one tissue plane to another, the amount of
Reflection is determined by the

1. Differences in the impedance of the two tissues.

2. Angle of incidence
Specular reflection is responsible for bright appearance of boundaries
between tissues. It occurs at tissue interfaces

Scatter gives rise to characteristic echo texture of image. Occurs at small

boundaries that occur within tissues.
Bending of waves as they pass from one medium to another is called refraction
Absorption in ultrasound is a result of frictional forces, that oppose
the motion of particles in the medium.
 DISPLAY

Digital
Data is stored
/ converted
PULSE GENERATOR AMPLIFIER For display
Learning to use knobs effortlessly is an important part of the art
Of ultrasonic scanning.
GAIN

Controls the degree of echo amplification or brightness of image

ZOOM
TIME GAIN COMPENSATION ( TGC)

Attempts to compensate for acoustic loss by absorption, reflection & scatter

& to show structures of same acoustic strength with the same brightness
no matter what the depth.

Operator controlled adjustment to compensate for the attenuation of

sound as it travels into the tissue
DYNAMIC RANGE

Refers to range of intensities from the largest to the smallest echo

that a system can display.

60 db 30 db
CALIPERS

DEPTH
*Artifacts related to instrumental problems

*Technique dependant artifacts

*Artifacts due to the way tissues affect sound.

ARTEFACTS RELATED TO INSTRUMENTAL PROBLEMS

1. Artifactual noise

2. Calibration artifacts

3. Main Bang artifact

4.Veiling Artifact

5.Side lobe artifact

ARTEFACTS CAUSED BY TECHNIQUE

1. Noise

2.TGC problems

3. Banding

4. Contact problem
ARTEFACTS CAUSED BY SOUND TISSUE INTERACTIONS

1.Artefacts from strongly reflective structures

2. Enhancement artifact
 3 Mirror image artifact

4. Reverberation Artifact
5. Comet tail artifact
 Ultrasound is a longitudinal wave, as
the displacement of the particles
within the medium is in the same
direction as that in which the wave is
travelling.
 FREQUENCY
The frequency, f, is the number of cycles of displacements
passing through a point in the medium during 1 second (s)

The unit of frequency is the hertz (Hz), with 1 Hz being one

complete cycle per second
PULSE =Set Of Frequencies
A broadband transducer will be more
efficient over a wider range of frequencies
than a narrow-band transducer.
Acoustic Impedance

The acoustic impedance of a medium is the

impedance (similar to resistance) the material

offers against the passage of the sound

wave through it and depends on the density

and compressibility of the medium

Ultrasound intensity

 The intensity is the energy crossing a unit area

(usually 1 cm2) in unit time.
 The spatial peak temporal average intensity, Ispta,
is the peak within the beam averaged over time.
 Another value of intensity that is used is the spatial
peak pulse average intensity, Isppa, which is the
spatial peak intensity averaged over the duration
ofthe pulse.
Beam shape
 The shape of the ultrasound beam produced
by a transducer will depend on the shape of
the element(s), on the transmitted frequency
and on whether the beam is focused.
 The shape of the beam will affect the region
of tissue that will be insonated and from
which returning echoes will be received.
 INTERACTION OF ULTRASOUND
WITH
SURFACES
When the ultrasound beam meets a
boundary between two media, some of
the ultrasound will be transmitted and
some will be reflected.
A: When the two media have similar
acoustic impedances, the majority of
the ultrasound will be transmitted
across the
boundary.
B: When the two media have different
acoustic impedances, most of the
ultrasound will be reflected.
Specular reflections
Specular reflections
occur at large smooth
interfaces
(A), whereas ultrasound
is scattered by rough
surfaces
(B) and small structures
B scan (B-mode) or Brightness scan.
 The varying amplitude of the signal can
be displayed as a spot of varying
brightness that travels across the display
with time.
 Distance travelled by the pulse is

shown along the vertical axis and the

distance between adjacent pulses is

shown along the horizontal axis

IMAGE QUALITY
The quality of the image will obviously depend on the

distance between adjacent beam paths, known as the line

density.

The more closely the scan lines are arranged, the more

time it will take to produce an image of a given size,

which will affect the rate at which the image is updated.

FRAME RATE
The rate at which complete images are produced per second is known

as the frame rate and is affected by the number of scan lines and

by the width and depth of the region of tissue being imaged.

The deeper the tissue being interrogated,the longer it will take for

the returning signal to reach the transducer before the next pulse

can be transmitted.

In B-mode imaging, it is rarely a problem to produce images with a

high enough line density and frame rate.

AMPLIFICATION OF RECEIVED
ULTRASOUND ECHOES
 Increasing the output power and
 Increasing the receiver gain.
 Increasing the voltage of the excitation pulse across the

transducer will cause the transducer to transmit a larger

amplitude ultrasound pulse, thus increasing the amplitude of

reflections.

 However, increasing the output power causes the patient to

be exposed to

more ultrasound energy.

Doppler effect
Austrian physicist named Christian Doppler in 1842.

 The Doppler effect is the change in

the observed frequency due to the
relative motion of the source and the
observer
The detected Doppler shift frequency
changes as the angle of insonation
changes.
 Ultrasound systems will often use a lower

transmitted frequency for Doppler than

for B-mode imaging, and the imaging and

Doppler transmitted frequencies are

usually indicated on the image.

 The Doppler shift frequency can then be extracted from

the received signal by a process known as demodulation.

 Here, the received signal is multiplied by the

transmitted signal and the product is filtered to remove

the high frequencies, thus providing the Doppler shift

frequency.
 The received signal has a different frequency from

the transmitted frequency, owing to the Doppler

effect, and a lower amplitude, owing to attenuation

of the signal by overlying tissue.

 As mentioned earlier, once the Doppler shift

frequency has been extracted (by demodulation) and

amplified, it can simply be output to a loudspeaker or

investigated using a spectrum analyzer

Demodulation

 This is used to

extract the

Doppler

frequency
 The velocity of the blood cells will vary with time,

owing to the pulsatile nature of arterial blood flow.

 This means that the Doppler shift signal obtained

from flowing blood will contain a range of

frequencies, due to the range of velocities present,

and the frequency content will vary with time.

 Spectral analysis can be used to break down the Doppler signal

into its component frequencies and to show how these

component frequencies vary with time.

 A spectrum is displayed, with time along the horizontal axis

and the Doppler shift frequency along the vertical axis.

 The third axis, the brightness of the display, shows the back-

scattered power of the signal at each frequency (i.e., the

proportion of the blood cells moving at a particular velocity).

 Spectral analysis is carried out by
computer using mathematical
techniques such as the fast Fourier
transform (FFT).
 a typical spectral display produced by
a Doppler system. In this case, each
vertical line of data is produced every
5–10 ms (i.e., 100–200 lines of data
per second).
Continuous wave (CW) Doppler
 Continuous wave (CW) Doppler continuously emits a single frequency

while the receiving element continuously detects any echoes from the

sensitive region of the beam (i.e., where transmitted and received

beams overlap)

 This region usually covers a depth of a few centimeters, and any flow

within this area will be detected.

 This means that CW Doppler is unable to provide information about the

depth from which the Doppler signal is returning.

 CW Doppler is therefore said to have poor range resolution. Veins

often lie adjacent to arteries and so, in many cases, the CW Doppler

will simultaneously detect arterial and venous flow.

Pulsed Doppler

 The poor range resolution

of CW Doppler can be

overcome by using a

pulse of ultrasound

energy and only acquiring

the returning signal at a

known time after the pulse

has been transmitted.

Pulse of ultrasound is transmitted and the receiver then waits a given
time before acquiring the signal over a short period of time.
 By knowing the speed of sound in
tissue, the depth from which the
signal has returned can be calculated,
in the same way as described for
pulsed echo imaging
 The time during which the received signal is acquired

is known as the range gate, and this can be altered by

the operator in order to determine the sample volume

size.

 The sample volume is the region from which returning

signals can be detected.

 Its size depends not only Sample volume, or sensitive

region but also on the shape of the transmitted pulse

and the shape of the ultrasound beam; it is described

as being teardrop-shaped
PULSE REPETITION FREQUENCY
(PRF)
 In order to measure the frequencies
present in the blood flow, thousands of
pulses are sent along the beam path per
second.
 The frequency at which these pulses are
sent is known as the pulse repetition
frequency (PRF) and is in the kHz range
 The upper limit of the PRF is given by
the constraint that the system has to
wait for all the returning echoes from
the last pulse before transmitting the
next one.
Aliasing

 Aliasing is the incorrect estimation of

the frequency of a signal due to
insufficient sampling of the signal.
FLOW PROFILES IN NORMAL ARTERIES

There are three types

of flow observed in
arteries:
 Laminar
 Disturbed
 Turbulent.
VELOCITY CHANGES WITHIN STENOSES

 Energy in a normal vessel

FLOW THROUGH STENOSES
 At an arterial stenosis, the velocity of
the blood has to increase because the
same volume of blood needs to pass
through a smaller cross-sectional area.
THANK YOU