Rodrigo P. B. da Costa-Felix, André Victor Alvarenga, Marissa A. Rivera Cardona
THE BRAZILIAN NATIONAL LABORATORY OF ULTRASOUND
Aiming to support the national metrology on ultrasound, Inmetro, the Brazilian National Institute of Metrology (NMI), has been putting effort on its Laboratory of Ultrasound (Labus). In a first approach, Labus is able to offer traceability in basically four general areas: Ultrasonic (US) Transducer Calibration, US Power Measurement, US Field Mapping, and Reference Materials Certification for US applications. The frequency range Labus firstly established its calibration and testing methods is from 0.5 MHz to 20 MHz, being the limits dependent on the particular application considered. So far, Labus most important facilities consist in two water tanks, three manuals and one complete remote-controlled micro-positioning systems, three equipments sets to generate and acquire US signals (arbitrary waveform generators and scopes-like instruments), a set of transducers and primary standards in Power Measurement (a stable US power source) and Hydrophone Calibration (two membrane hydrophones). For while, Labus is traced to others NMI, but the goal is to implement absolute calibration methods in two years time. Within this paper, Labus will be presented in details, particularly outlining its state of art in Transducer Calibration, Power Measurement, and Reference Materials Certification. Join ventures with industry and private and universities laboratories will be outlined, either.