Dr. Suprijanto reviewed a little about ultrasonic waves which are the basis of ultrasound technology. According to him, ultrasonic waves are one of the acoustic waves based on their propagation including longitudinal waves, with wave properties such as reflection, diffraction, and so on.

"Ultrasonic technology has been around for more than a century," said Dr. Suprijanto while briefly explaining the history of the development of ultrasonic technology. Beginning with the discovery of piezo-electric material by Pierre Curie in 1877, ultrasonic technology has undergone many developments from time to time.

"It seems that we can now find this technology in the medical field such as Ultrasonography (USG). Not only in the medical field, this technology is also needed in the industrial sector," he said.

In this session, Dr. Suprijanto talked about one of the studies on Non-Destructive Test Ultrasonic Technology (US-NDT) to inspect internal cracks on railroad tracks without damaging the rails. In this inspection the transducer will be attached to the rail to be observed. Once pasted, this interaction will produce an echo pattern of the measured signal. If the echo reflection looks different, then something is happening to the part of the rail being observed.

The tools used to inspect these rails are also growing. Initially only relying on conventional measurements can now be done automatically. This automatic inspection is carried out by wagon. He said that at this time Engineering Physics ITB was also actively involved in developing inspection wagons.

Engineering Physics ITB developed an electronic system based on a low power FPGA pulser/ultrasonic receiver. This system will be designed for communication with notebooks as a data store for A-mode signal patterns during inspections based on Wi-Fi communication.

Just like in the medical field, ultrasonic technology also plays an important role. ITB also conducts A-Mode Ultrasonic Spectroscopy research on syringes. This study aims to observe the echo of the needle when it is injected at different angles. In this research, the visibility of echo will be seen. The brighter the visibility, the more visible the needle will be on ultrasound. In addition, ITB also conducts research to image the lungs with ultrasound.

At the end of his explanation, he said that this field is one of the important competencies in the world of engineering physics. Therefore, ITB published a book entitled Medical Ultrasonography Principles and Its Applications to help people who are interested in this Ultrasonography field.

Reporter: Kevin Agriva Ginting (TPB, 2020)
Translator: Aghisna Syifa R (TPB SITHS 2020)