Acoustical waveguides for sensor applications

The continuous measurement of rheological properties (density and viscosity) or material properties (concentration of selected substances) of liquid mixtures in the chemical industry or in the food industry is a great challenge to this day. Standard chemical sensors are often not suitable for industrial processes because of their slow sensor response and their limited robustness due to the direct contact to process media. Ultrasonic sensor systems meet the practical requirements of a chemical sensor quite well. Current ultrasonic sensor systems are already widely used as acoustic chemical sensors to measure concentration of selected substances or to monitor the course of polymerization, crystallization or fermentation processes. Useable acoustic properties for the characterization of liquid mixtures are sound velocity, sound absorption and acoustic impedance in consideration of temperature. This contribution will give a short overview of the state of the art and several trends for the use of ultrasonic sensor systems in process applications. Currently there are many activities to use acoustic waveguides for above mentioned sensor applications. By means of two selected examples (density measurement and determination of acoustic properties of highly absorbing synthetic polymers) it will presented new developed measurement principles using acoustic waveguides.