Low-frequency acoustic characteristics of biological tissues

The laws of propagation of elastic waves of different types in biological tissues in the acoustic frequency range have been theoretically and experimentally investigated. The contributions of the imaginary and real components of the complex modulus of elasticity to the elastic wave velocity are analyzed. It is shown that in soft tissues, low-frequency elastic disturbances are propagated chiefly by shear (transverse) waves. The geometric dispersion of the elastic wave velocity has been investigated in experiments on gel model systems; the results of the measurements are in agreement with the theoretical dispersion curve.