Separation of viscothermal losses and scattering in ultrasonic characterization of porous media

This paper presents a method for separating viscothermal and scattering losses in ultrasonic characterization of porous media. This method is based on variations of the static pressure of the saturating fluid. Experimental results were already presented in previous papers and the losses separation was verified experimentally. The aim of this paper is to present an analytic justification of this losses separation in the case of this experimental method and to show that it is possible to estimate acoustic parameters without the knowledge of scattering characteristics. The standard scattering length is used to renormalize speed and transmission through the porous medium, described as an equivalent fluid. Under certain assumptions corresponding to a weak scattering regime, it is shown how viscothermal and scattering losses can be separated easily without knowing scattering characteristics. Application of this model is presented in the case of weak scattering in a polyurethane foam and in the limit case of stronger scattering in a glass beads sample.