Simulation and Experimental Studies on Tri-Phasic PZT Piezoelectric Transducer

Abstract

This paper reports the simulation results of a tri-phase piezoelectric transducer composed of PZT-5H rods surrounded by hexagonal polymer walls in a vacuum ambient. The electrical and mechanical characteristics of these transducers are simulated and predicted. The measured piezoelectric properties of the fabricated transducer at 100 kHz are found to be very much in agreement with those of the predicted design. The simulation of the designed transducer was expected to have acoustic energy channeled in the d33 mode at resonance, with weak or no shear mode cross talk behavior from the other modes. The mechanical displacements measured were large and highly aligned along d33 mode. This implies that tri-phasic piezoelectric transducer performs as a single device with improved mechanical and electrical response. Such designed transducers can be highly useful for the noncontact non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and non-destructive testing (NDT) with high resolution and greater depth profile of various types of material studies. Thus using several design parameters variables new transducers with desirable features can be produced for wide range of applications.