1. Drilling Engineering Technology Institute, Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, Puyang 457001, Henan, China; 2. Engineering Faculty, China University of Geosciences, W uhan 430074, China

Drilling fluid is a common flushingmedium used in pile foundation, geological drilling and petroleum drilling. Study on ultrasonic propagation properties in drilling fluid is of vital importance, not only for developing equipments to non-contact measuring concrete casting level for bored pile, but also for developing equipments considering drilling fluid as signal channel. The existence of clay particlesmakes the ultrasonic propagation and attenuation in drilling fluid much different from pure water. In order to know the relation among ultrasound frequency, slurry density and depth, a series of laboratory experiments about ultrasound propagation in water-based bentonite slurry were finished. Wavelet method was adopted to process the gained original waves of ultrasonic propagation in slurry, so we knew the velocity and attenuation coefficient of ultrasound propagated in different drilling fluids with different density. The first group experiments shows that with density of drilling fluid increase, ultrasonic velocity will decrease but attenuation coefficient will increase if ultrasonic frequency keep constant. The second group experiments shows that the power of ultrasound will intensify in small bore hole, the attenuation coefficient ismuch smaller than theoretical value.