Structural Design and Test of a Piezoelectric Flextensional Transducer for Passive Detection of Frogmen

Abstract

A piezoelectric flextensional transducer was designed using the finite element method (FEM) for the passive detection of underwater frogmen. By studying the main performance parameters of sonar transducers for the detection of frogmen around the world, this paper presents the advantages of active and passive sonar in this task and proposes a passive method for the detection of frogmen. Subsequently, a Cymbal transducer was selected considering the needs of the research. After introducing the principles and methods of the FEM analysis, the acoustic and electromechanical characteristics of the Cymbal transducer were verified under the influence of structural dimensions, e.g., resonance frequency, conductance, and susceptance. The electromechanical performance of the Cymbal transducer was simulated with a FEM to study how it is affected by static water pressure and processing errors and to demonstrate the feasible application of the Cymbal transducer in practical applications. In the end, a Cymbal prototype was tested to verify that the designed Cymbal transducer performs in compliance with the requirements and can be used for the passive detection of underwater frogmen with open-circuit breathing.