Finite element and experimental study of composite and 1-D array transducers

This paper reports a combined finite element and experimental study of composite and 1-D array transducers. The main properties characterized are the electrical impedance and beampattern. In order to calculate the beampattern of a transducer immersed in water, the pressure distribution and the normal velocity at the interface of water and transducer were calculated by using ANSYS@. These results were then input into the Helmholtz integral to calculate the beampattern. The impedance curve was obtained by performing harmonic analysis using ANSYS@. Related experiments were also conducted to verify these calculated results, good agreement was achieved between the experiments and simulations. Because of the similarity between the structures of 2-2 composite and 1-D array, the same FEA modeling procedure for 2-2 composites was extended to study a 1-D array. Particularly, the cross talk level and directivity of each element in an array were studied.