Design and Fabrication of Air-Based 1-3 Piezoelectric Composite Transducer for Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Applications

The air-based 1-3 piezoelectric composite transducers are designed and fabricated in order to solve the acoustic impedance matching problem. Firstly, a finite element model using honeycomb structure as the piezoelectric composite matrix is built to reduce the acoustic impedance of the sensitive element. Three important factors, volume fraction of piezoelectric materials , the thickness , and the size of the square cross section of piezoelectric column, are examined and verified in simulation. Then, according to the result of simulation, the piezoelectric composites and the air-coupled transducers are fabricated. The honeycomb structures of resin are produced by the method of 3D printing technology, with the volume fraction of air being 30%. The impedance characteristics and the excitation/reception performance of the air-coupled transducers are measured and optimized. Meanwhile, a scanning experiment is carried out to demonstrate the crack detection process in monocrystalline silicon. mode of Lamb waves is excited and collected. The location and size of the defect will be determined by calculating the correlation coefficients of the received signals and reference signals. Finally, a 15 mm × 0.5 mm × 0.5 mm scratch is clearly distinguished.