• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.629-636
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• 2003

It will be very convenient if the directivity characteristics of ultrasonic transducer array are controllable by the purpose of use in the fields of sonar system or ultrasonic diagnostic system, In this paper, a control method of the directivity characteristics was suggested. The transducer array was consisted of two-layered piezoelectric vibrators. Efficiency of each vibrator is controlled in 2nd harmonic mode by electrical capacitance. Therefore, the beam width of the transducer array can be controlled by changing the capacitance. The directivity characteristics of the array were analyzed experimentally and theoretically. As the results, it is confirmed that -3 dB beam width of main lobe can be controlled in the range of 7.6°∼16.2°.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.761-776
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• 2018

Guided wave testing is a reliable and safe method for pipeline inspection. In general, guided wave testing employs a circumferential array of piezoelectric transducers to clamp on the pipe circumference. The sensitivity of the operation depends on many factors, including transducer distribution across the circumferential array. This paper presents the sensitivity analysis of transducer array for the circumferential characteristics of guided waves in a pipe using finite element modelling and experimental studies. Various cases are investigated for the outputs of guided waves in the numerical simulations, including the number of transducers per array, transducer excitation variability and variations in transducer spacing. The effect of the dimensions of simulated notches in the pipe is also investigated for different arrangements of the transducer array. The results from the finite element numerical simulations are then compared with the related experimental results. Results show that the numerical outputs agree well with the experimental data, and the guided wave mode T(0,1) presents high sensitivity to the notch size in the circumferential direction, but low sensitivity to the notch size in the axial direction.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.207-216
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• 1999

A phased array is a multi-element piezoelectric device whose elements are individually excited by electric pulses at programmed delay time. One of the advantages of using phased array in nondestructive evaluation (NDE) application over conventional ultrasonic transducers is their great maneuverability of ultrasonic beam. There are some parameters such as the number and the size of the piezoelectric elements and the inter-element spacing of the elements to design phased array transducer. In this study, the characteristic of ultrasonic beam for phased array transducer due to the variation of the number of elements has been simulated for ultrasonic SH-wave on the basis of Huygen's principle. Ultrasonic beam directivity and focusing due to the change of time delay of each element were discussed due to the change of the number of piezoelectric elements. It was found that ultrasonic beam was much more spreaded and hence its sound pressure was decreased as steering angle of ultrasonic beam was increased. In addition, the ability of ultrasonic bean focusing decreased gradually with the increase of focal length at the same piezoelectric elements. However, the ability of beam focusing was improved as the number of consisting elements was increased.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.56-61
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• 2002

In piezoelectric ultrasonic linear array transducers widely used for diagnosis, the cross talk caused by the structural cross-coupling between adjacent elements inside the transducer affects the probe performance in a significant manner. In this study, we constructed a finite element model of a piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer, and analyzed its cross talk level with respect to the shape of and materials inside the kerf, The results of this work can be utilized in optimal design of the transducers for medical diagonosis and treatment as well as W applications.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.208-216
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• 2003

In one dimensional linear array type piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers widely used for medical diagnosis, the acoustic cross talk caused by the structural acoustic coupling between the adjacent piezoelectric elements reduces significantly their performance. In the study, we have proposed an acoustic wall to reduce the acoustic cross talk by wave propagation through the surface the transducer which can not be prevented by conventional kerf and have analyzed using a finite element method the acoustic cross talk level with respect to the shape, size and materials of the acoustic wall mounted on a convex one dimensional piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer. We expect that the simulated results provide us with a valuable information to make an optimized design of the way type ultrasonic transducer minimizing the acoustic cross talk level.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.592-599
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• 2002

In this study, an ultrasonic transducer was designed with a commercial finite element analysis (FEA) code, PZFlex, and fabricated based on the design. The transducer has the dimension and shape suitable for abdomen diagnosis working at 5 ㎒ and consists of 128 piezoelectric elements disposed in a convex linear array form. The transducer is composed of two impedance matching layers, one backing layer, and kerfs placed between the piezoelectric elements. Validity of the design with the FEA was illustrated through experimental characterization of a sample transducer. Comparison with the design results by equivalent circuit analysis method was also made to check the superiority of the FEA design.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.393-401
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• 2013

In this paper, a $48{\times}64$ channel 2D array ultrasonic transducer with piezoelectric single crystals was designed, fabricated, and evaluated. Structure of the transducer was chosen to facilitate the electric connection on the planar array, and then components were fabricated in accordance with the structure. Detailed structure of the transducer was designed through finite element analyses. In order to improve the performance of the transducer, the crosstalk between adjacent elements was reduced through the control of kerf width and material, and the target frequency bandwidth was achieved through optimal design of the thickness of the single crystal and matching layers. After fabricating a prototype of the transducer according to the design and measuring its characteristics, the results were compared with those of finite element analyses to evaluate the performance of the developed transducer.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.199-207
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• 2013

In this paper, a $64{\times}8$ channel 1.75D ultrasonic transducer made of piezoelectric single crystals was designed, fabricated, and evaluated. First, a structure of the transducer was selected to be suitable for wiring on a planar array, and components were fabricated to correspond to the structure. Detailed structure of the transducer was designed through finite element analyses. As main performance factors, the crosstalk between neighboring elements was reduced through the control of kerf width and material, and desired frequency bandwidth of the transducer was achieved by designing the optimal thicknesses of the piezoelectric single crystal and matching layers. An experimental prototype of the transducer was fabricated following the design, and its performance was measured. Then the experimental results were compared with those of the finite element analysis, which led to the evaluation of the transducer developed in this work.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.329-336
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• 2003

Intra-Vascular Ultra-Sound (IVUS) transducers were developed for the application to diagnose coronary diseases. The transducer consists of 32 piezoelectric elements with a front insulation layer and a polymeric acoustic backing layer on a hollow alumina tube. The optimal geometrical structure of the transducer was designed through theoretical analysis of radiation patterns of the transducer. Samples of the IVUS transducers of the diameter of 3㎜ were fabricated to illustrate the design scheme. For the piezoelectric elements, 2-2 mode piezocomposite materials were employed. Experimental performance of the transducers showed good agreement with the design results, which verified feasibility of the transducer for IVUS applications.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.4 s.175
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• pp.972-981
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• 2000

The phased array transducer has two distinct advantages. One is rapid scanning comparing with the conventional mechanical or manual scanning system. Therefore, output image is represented in real-time. The other is the dynamic focusing and the dynamic steering of ultrasonic beam. Only the delay times that are controlled electrically are used to focus and to steer beam without any lenses or wedges. In this study, the profile of the ultrasonic beam for the phased array transducer has been simulated in the Huygens principle with varying the inter-element spacing of the linear phased array transducer. From the result of this study, it was found that the ultrasonic beam spread wider as the inter-element spacing was decreased. However, the focusing effect was improved, even when the number of the element was not big. In addition, there was grating lobes that are constructed when the inter-element spacing is more than half wavelength. However, this grating lobe has lower amplitude than the main lobe.