Biological Effects of Low-Frequency Shear Strain: Physical Descriptors

Abstract

Biological effects of megahertz-frequency diagnostic ultrasound are thoroughly monitored by professional societies throughout the world. A corresponding, thorough, quantitative evaluation of the archival literature on the biological effects of low-frequency vibration is needed. Biological effects, of course, are related directly to what those exposures do physically to the tissue—specifically, to the shear strains that those sources produce in the tissues. Instead of the simple compressional strains produced by diagnostic ultrasound, realistic sources of low-frequency vibration produce both fast (∼1,500 m/s) and slow (1–10 m/s) waves, each of which may have longitudinal and transverse shear components. Part 1 of this series illustrates the resulting strains, starting with those produced by longitudinally and transversely oscillating planes, through monopole and dipole sources of fast waves and, finally, to the case of a sphere moving in translation—the simplest model of the fields produced by realistic sources.