Simone Angela Winkler1, Andrew Alejski2, Trevor Wade2, Charles McKenzie2, and Brian K Rutt1
1Dept. of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States, 2Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
We hypothesized that
ceramic inserts will reduce sound pressure levels (SPLs) in high performance
head gradient coils. We used realistic multi-physics modeling methods (previously
validated by experiments) to investigate this hypothesis, and in particular to
evaluate vibroacoustic reductions as a function of ceramic insert geometry and
frequency of excitation. Averaged over the range 0-3000Hz, we demonstrate a
maximum overall SPL reduction of 10.9dB, with a substantially higher reduction
in the high frequency regime (2000-3000Hz) of 20.7dB. We show that a uniform 15mm
thick cylindrical insert is a practical design that yields the majority of the
acoustic reduction benefit.
