In this paper, a new method for measuring the viscosity of liquids at high pressure is presented. To this end the authors have applied an ultrasonic method using the Bleustein-Gulyaev (BG) surface acoustic wave. By applying the perturbation method, we can prove that the change in the complex propagation constant of the BG wave produced by the layer of liquid loading the waveguide surface is proportional to the shear mechanical impedance of the liquid. In the article, a measuring setup employing the BG wave for the purpose of measuring the viscosity of liquids at high pressure (up to 1GPa) is presented. The results of high-pressure viscosity measurements of triolein and castor oil are also presented. In this paper the model of a Newtonian liquid was applied. Using this new method it is also possible to measure the viscosity of liquids during the phase transition and during the decompression process (hysteresis of the dependence of viscosity on pressure).

Estimation of the mechanical and geometrical parameters of thin coatings and surface layers in materials is of great practical importance in engineering and technology. Indeed, surface properties of many vital engineering components, such as turbine blades, pistons, or bearings, directly affect the longevity and safety of modern machinery. In this article, the authors present a novel inversion procedure for simultaneous determination of thickness, shear elastic constant, and density of thin coating layers in materials. The inversion procedure is based on measurements of the dispersion curve for surface acoustic waves of the Love type. The inverse problem is formulated as an optimization problem with the appropriately designed objective function, depending on the material parameters of the coating layer, ultrasonic frequency, and the experimental data, i.e. measured phase velocity of the surface Love wave. The minimization of the objective function provides three parameters of a thin layer, i.e. its thickness, shear elastic constant, and density. The proposed inverse method was checked experimentally for different layered structures, such as copper layer on steel substrate or ceramics-on-ceramics. The agreement between the results of calculations with the proposed inversion method and the experimental data was good.

A new ultrasonic method of viscosity measurements at a high-pressure conditions has been presented. The method is based on the Love wave amplitude measurement. The same electronic setup as in the Bleustein–Gulyaev (B–G) wave method applied by the authors recently for a high-pressure measurement was adopted. The new sensors were made of metallic materials, which make them more reliable at high-pressure conditions. The method has been successfully applied for the viscosity measurement of some triglycerides at high-pressure conditions up to 1 GPa. The results have been compared with the earlier results obtained using B–G waves. This comparison has shown that Love wave method sensors are more reliable than B–G wave sensors and are also cheaper in fabrication, although the sensitivity of Love wave sensors is lower. During the measurement, the phase transitions in the investigated liquids were observed.

High-pressure processing is a powerful technology for food preservation. The knowledge of foods properties in the high-pressure range is important to develop and optimize such processes by means of mathematical modeling and simulation. Ultrasonic methods are rapid, non-invasive and can be used to characterize foods like edible oils (e.g., composition, purity, and quality assessment). In this paper, they were applied for the investigation of physicochemical properties of olive oil at high pressure at different temperatures. The sound wave velocity was measured by the pulse-transmission method and the corresponding oil density was additionally determined from the monitoring of sample volume change. Measurements were conducted in the pressure range up to 600 MPa, for temperatures from 20 to 50 °C. Intermolecular free length, isothermal and adiabatic compressibility versus pressure were calculated using measured sound speed and density isotherms. Discontinuities in the measured isotherms of sound speed and density versus pressure indicate the presence of liquid-to-solid phase transitions. The kinetics of the liquid-to-solid phase transition was also investigated. The transformation times of olive oil augment with increasing temperature. This study can be broadened to other liquid foodstuffs to investigate the influence of temperature on their physicochemical properties at high pressure.