• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.151-161
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• 2018

A new type of cascade sandwiched piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer is presented and studied. The cascade transducer is composed of two traditional longitudinally sandwiched piezoelectric transducers, which are connected together in series mechanically and in parallel electrically. Based on the analytical method, the electromechanical equivalent circuit of the cascade transducer is derived and the resonance/anti-resonance frequency equations are obtained. The impedance characteristics and the vibrational modes of the transducer are analyzed. By means of numerical method, the dependency of the resonance/anti-resonance frequency and the effective electromechanical coupling coefficient on the geometrical dimensions of the cascade transducer are studied and some interesting conclusions are obtained. Two prototypes of the cascade transducers are designed and made; the resonance/anti-resonance frequency is measured. It is shown that the analytical resonance/anti-resonance frequencies are in good agreement with the experimental results. It is expected that this kind of cascade transducer can be used in large power and high intensity ultrasonic applications, such as ultrasonic liquid processing, ultrasonic metal machining and ultrasonic welding and soldering.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.271-275
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• 2011

This paper proposes a magnetoelectric (ME) composite transducer structure consisting of a magnetostrictive H-type Fe-Ni fork substrate and piezoelectric PZT plates. The fork composite structure has a higher ME voltage coefficient compared to other ME composite structures due to the higher quality (Q) factor. The ME sensitivity of the fork structure reaches 12 V/Oe (i.e., 150 V/cm Oe). The fork composite with two PZT plates electrically connected in series exhibits over 5 times higher ME voltage coefficient than the output of the rectangle structure in the same size. The experiment shows the composite of a Fe-Ni fork substrate and PZT plates has a significantly enhanced ME voltage coefficient and a higher ME sensitivity relative to the prior sandwiched composite laminates. By the use of a lock-in amplifier with 10 nV resolution, this transducer can detect a weak magnetic field of less than $10^{-12}$ T. This transducer can also be designed for a magnetoelectric energy harvester due to its passive high-efficiency ME energy conversion.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.870-879
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• 2007

In this study, various damage modes in bending unimorph piezoelectric composite actuators with a thin sandwiched PZT plate during bending fracture tests have been evaluated by monitoring acoustic emission (AE) signals in terms of waveform and peak frequency as well as AE parameters. Three kinds of actuator specimens consisting of woven fabric fiber skin layers and a PZT ceramic core layer are loaded with a roller and an AE activity from the specimen is monitored during the entire loading using an AE transducer mounted on the specimen. AE characteristics from a monolithic PZT ceramic with a thickness of $250{\mu}m$ are examined first in order to distinguish different AE signals from various possible damage modes in piezoelectric composite actuators. Post-failure observations and stress analyses in the respective layers of the specimens are conducted to identify particular features in the acoustic emission signal that correspond to specific types of damage modes. As a result, the signal classification based on waveform and peak frequency analyses successfully describes the failure process of the bending piezoelectric composite actuator exhibiting diverse failure mechanisms. Furthermore, it is elucidated that when the PZT ceramic embedded actuators are loaded mechanical bending loads, the failure process of actuator specimens with different lay-up configurations is almost same irrespective of their lay-up configurations.