Numerical analysis of the phased array imaging with a stacked plate buffer

This paper discusses the imaging with a phased array transducer attached with a stacked thin plate buffer using the calculations of wave propagation. The buffer is designed to guarantee the performance of phased array transducer based on the properties of dispersion nature of the S0 mode of Lamb wave. First, numerical analyses showed the limitations of the imaging with a stacked plate buffer due to the multiple reflections at the buffer ends. Then the effective detecting region (EDR) of the phased array transducer with a stacked plate buffer was investigated theoretically and numerically. The imaging results of the numerical calculations agreed with the theoretical predictions on the EDR. Final numerical analyses also presented the longer buffer provides the wider EDR as predicted by the theoretical investigations.