Measurement of dilatational wave speed using an echo reduction test

Echo reduction is a measure of a materials ability to reduce the reflection of acoustic energy and is a typical measurement performed in acoustic tanks. In this paper, an inverse method is developed to estimate the complex dilatational wave speed of a material using echo reduction data. The theory of echo reduction is briefly discussed, the inverse method is developed and then an experiment is conducted to illustrate the technique. The real parts of the resultant wave speed measurements are then compared to measurements using identification of discrete wavelengths. It is shown that the two measurement techniques produce extremely similar estimates.