Study on the multiple scattering effects of ultrasound contrast agents

In this paper, the multiple scattering of interacting encapsulated microbubbles in suspensions is calculated using two novel approaches - Kargl's effective medium approach and Ye and Ding's approach of 2nd-order correction. Two types of contrast agents with bubbles of different sizes and concentrations are chosen for our numerical simulations. One is Albunex®, which is depicted by Church and has a size range of several microns, and the other is sodium laureate solution (before fractionation) described by Soetanto and Chan and has an average size of 35.5 μm. The numerical results from these two approaches are compared with that from the linear approximation. It is found that the multiple scattering effects on attenuation and dispersion of sound in suspensions are evident in the cases of high bubble volume fractions, basically greater than the order of 1 × 10−4, and much more obvious for larger bubbles with average size of tens of microns.