A unified analysis of ultrasonic delay lines is presented with
particular attention paid to the characteristics of
direct‐current pulse transmission. The analysis can be applied
to any delay line, whether piezoelectric or magnetostrictive,
regardless of whether the mode of transmission is longitudinal,
shear, or torsional, as long as the motion is adequately
described by the one‐dimensional theory on which the equivalent
circuits are based. Characteristics in the time domain are
obtained in terms of the time‐shift operators of Laplace
transform calculus. This makes it possible to easily obtain the
output waveform for any arbitrary input. Three transducer
configurations are discussed; namely, a line with transducers in
the middle of the delay medium (Case A), a line with one of the
transducers at the free end of the delay medium (Case B) and a
line with transducers at both free ends of the delay medium
(Case C). The latter two configurations are especially useful
for a delay line made of a ferrite or piezoelec