Simultaneous determination of porosity, tortuosity, viscous and thermal characteristic lengths of rigid porous materials.

We present an improved method for the characterization of air-saturated porous materials by simultaneous measurement of porosity, tortuosity, viscous, and thermal characteristic lengths via ultrasonic transmission only. The proposed method is based on a temporal model of the direct and inverse scattering problem for the transient ultrasonic waves in a homogeneous isotropic slab of rigid porous material. The advantage of the proposed method is that the four parameters are determined simultaneously using just transmitted experimental waves from a porous material saturated by one gas (air). In addition, no relationship is assumed between the two characteristic lengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]