Today, ultrasonic signal is being used for predicting material behavior,

characterizing (detecting internal anomalies in) a variety of engineering

structures, as well as for inspecting human body parts like - tumors, bones,

and unborn fetuses. Because of the ever-increasing popularity of the

ultrasonic techniques in a wide range of applications, this technology has

received a lot of attention from the research community. This issue presents

some new developments in ultrasonic research for material characterization

and nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of materials. Application areas cover

both engineering and biological materials.

Some of the recent advances in the science and technology of ultrasonic

NDE and other areas of research on ultrasonic technology that go beyond the

traditional imaging techniques of internal defects are covered in Ultrasonic

Methods for Material Characterization. New inspection and material

characterization techniques applied to engineering structures, as well as

biological materials are presented here. The papers published in this volume

cover a wide range of application areas of the ultrasonic technology.