Sonoelastographic imaging of interference patterns for estimation of the shear velocity of homogeneous biomaterials

The shear wave velocity is one of a few important parameters that characterize the mechanical properties of bio-materials. In this paper, two noninvasive methods are proposed to measure the shear velocity by inspecting the shear wave interference patterns. In one method, two shear wave sources are placed on the opposite two sides of a sample, driven by the identical sinusoidal signals. The shear waves from the two sources interact to create interference patterns, which are visualized by the vibration sonoelastography technique. The spacing between the pattern bands equals half of the shear wavelength. The shear velocity can be obtained by taking the product of the wavelength and the frequency. An alternative method is to drive the two vibration sources at slightly different frequencies. In this case, the interference patterns no longer remain stationary. It is proved that the apparent velocity of the moving patterns is proportional to the shear velocity in the medium. Since the apparent velocity of the patterns can be measured by analysing the video sequence, the shear velocity can be obtained thereafter. These approaches are validated by a conventional shear wave time-of-flight approach, and they are accurate within 4% on various homogeneous tissue-mimicking phantoms.