Effects of dead elements in ultrasound transducers

Abstract: Ultrasound is a common modality used in healthcare today. The ultrasound images can be used as a diagnostic tool and the image quality is therefore important. Earlier studies have shown that transducers used clinically are often damaged; a type of damage is dead elements in the transducer. In this study, it has been evaluated how the number and the placement of the dead elements impact the beam profile and how this is reflected in the image quality. This has been performed with two types of simulations, one simulated beam profiles and the other simulated dead elements in a transducer used to create real images. The results showed that the beam profile was affected by both the number and the placement of dead elements. It has not been determined how the altered beam profile affected the image quality, but there were indications that the image quality deteriorated when there were dead elements in the transducer. As both the number of dead elements and their placement affected the beam profile, an acceptance level could not be suggested regarding the number of dead elements.