ABSTRACT
The study of ultrasonics is the investigation of the effects of propagation, interaction with matter, and the application of a particular form of energy—sound waves—at frequencies above the limits of human perception. Ultrasonics includes the basic science of the energy–matter interaction, the associated technologies for generation and detection, and an increasingly diverse range of applications, which are encountered in almost every field of engineering, many of the sciences and in medicine. Ultrasonics, originally called supersonics, has a long history but can be said to have only become a subject of scientific research since World War I when Langevin invented the quartz ultrasonic transducer. Ultrasonic waves are also termed both acoustic and elastic waves. The foundations for ultrasonics as a field of science and application were in large part laid between about 1930 and 1960. Ultrasonics as a specific branch of the science of acoustics had its birth in the study of underwater sound.
