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The progress of malolactic fermentation in red wines has been monitored by using ultrasonic techniques. The evolution of ultrasonic velocity of a tone burst 1 MHz longitudinal wave was measured, analyzed and compared to those parameters of oenological interest obtained simultaneously by analytical methods. Semi-industrial tanks were used during measurements pretending to be in real industrial conditions. Results showed that the ultrasonic velocity mainly changes as a result of the conversion by lactic acid bacteria of malic acid into lactic acid and CO2. Overall, the present study has demonstrated the potential of the ultrasonic technique in monitoring the malolactic fermentation process. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Air coupled piezoelectric ultrasonic array transducers are a novel tool that could lead to interesting advances in the area of non-contact laminar material testing using Lamb wave’s propagation techniques. A key issue on the development of such transducers is their efficient coupling to air media (impedance mismatch between the piezoelectric material and air is 90 dB or more). Adaptation layers are used in order to attain good matching and avoid possible serious signal degradation. However, the introduction of these matching layers modify the transducer surface behaviour and, consequently, radiation characteristics are altered, making the usual idealization criteria (of uniform surface movement) adopted for field simulation purposes inaccurate. In our system, we have a concave linear-array transducer of 64 elements (electrically coupled by pairs) working at 0.8 MHz made of PZ27 rectangular piezoceramics (15 mm × 0.3 mm) with two matching layers made of polyurethane and porous cellulose bonded on them. Experimental measurements of the acoustic aperture of single excited array elements have shown an increment on the geometrical dimensions of its active surface. A sub-millimeter vibrometer laser scan has revealed an extension of the aperture beyond the supposed physical single array element dimensions. Non-uniform symmetric apodized velocity surface vibration amplitude profile with a concave delay contour indicates the presumed existence of travelling wave phenomena over the surface of the outer array matching layer. Also, asymptotic propagation velocities around 2500 m/s and attenuation coefficient between 15 and 20 dB/mm has been determined for the travelling waves showing clear tendencies. Further comparisons between the experimental measurements of single array element field radiation diagram and simulated equivalent aperture counterpart reveal good agreement versus the ideal (uniform displaced) rectangular aperture. For this purpose an Impulse Response Method (IRM) has been used.

In Lamb waves inspection, an air-coupled transmitter transducer is oriented at a specific angle such that it generates a pure Lamb mode which propagates along the structure and interacts with any existing defects. For this inspection system, amplitude losses appears when small inclinations of the tested structure occurs. An important factor which affects directly these losses has been observed, it consists of the Lamb waves beam (LWB) deviation due to this bad alignment. In this work, a simple expression of LWB deviation has been deduced. This expression includes the test structure angle, phase velocity of generated Lamb mode, and the phase velocity of waves propagating in the coupled medium. A(0) Lamb mode is generated and detected in 1 mm thick aluminium plate sample using 1 MHz PZ27 piezoelectric transducers of 20 mm of diameter. Experimental LWB deviation angles are measured for different inclination angles of the test sample. A comparative study is released with theoretical results. For 1 degree of misalignment in the aluminium plate inclination, and transducers separation distance of 35 mm, LWB deviation angle is around 7 degrees and the amplitude is reduced by around 11%. Then, for a large separation distance, we must move the receiver transducer to detect the deviated LWB. It is shown that, for both theoretical and experimental studies, the LWB deviation and its measured amplitude are very sensitive to the alignment of the tested structure with respect to the transmitter-receiver transducers plane. In metal plates it is most satisfactory to use A(0) mode compared with S(0) mode since it is easy to excite and has a large amplitude and small deviation beam angles.