The influence of the thickness of non-piezoelectric pieces on pre-stressed piezotransducers

The mechanical pre-stress applied in piezotransducers used to generate high power ultrasound is needed to avoid ceramics fracture on traction cycle. Pre-stress levels inferior to 50 MPa can yield resonance shifting due to effectiveness of acoustic coupling between transducer pieces. Symmetrical transducers with different thickness of passive parts were submitted to axial mechanical prestress up to 50 MPa and their resonances were measured. The experimental results show the increasing of the resonances frequencies with the level of applied pre-stress. Similar effect is verified in simulations by using a model based on Mason's equivalent electric circuit. Due to the similarity of these effects, a relation between applied pre-stress and pieces coupling was proposed for the transducer assembled. In addition, the dependence of the thickness of non-piezoelectric pieces on the coupling effectiveness between them is discussed. The results show that transducers with small thickness present more expressive shifting resonance ratio. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.