Thermal-Acoustic Optimization of an Ultrasound Imaging System: A Case Study

The ultrasound imaging system under study is a high-end performance imaging system. Physicians often use this system in small examination rooms where they not only interpret the high resolution images but also listen to the audio extracted from the ultrasound Doppler signals. In order to do this, the system has to be intrinsically low noise. Since the cooling fans and flow are the root cause of the noise, a thermal-acoustic analysis of this system was conducted to drastically reduce the overall noise level of the unit. The originality of this paper lies in the multi-disciplinary approach used to optimize noise/cooling performance of the card cage system.