Radiation impedance and equivalent circuit for piezoelectric ultrasonic composite transducers of vibrational mode-conversion

The piezoelectric ultrasonic composite transducer, which can be used in either gas or liquid media, is studied in this paper. The composite transducer is composed of a longitudinal sandwich piezoelectric transducer, a mechanical transformer, and a metal circular plate in flexural vibration. Acoustic radiation is produced by the flexural circular plate, which is excited by the longitudinal sandwich transducer and transformer. Based on the classic flexural theory of plates, the equivalent lumped parameters for a plate in axially symmetric flexural vibration with free boundary conditions are obtained. The radiation impedance of the plate is derived and the relationship between the radiation impedance and the frequency is analyzed. The equivalent circuits for the plate in flexural vibration and the composite transducer are given. The vibrational modes and the harmonic response of the composite piezoelectric transducer are simulated by the numerical method. Based on the theoretical and numerical analysis, two composite piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers are designed and manufactured, their admittance-frequency curves are measured, and the resonance frequency is obtained. The flexural vibrational displacement distribution of the transducer is measured with a laser scanning vibrometer. It is shown that the theoretical results are in good agreement with the measured resonance frequency and the displacement distribution.