Design of a Wideband Tonpilz Transducer Comprising Non-Uniform Piezoceramic Stacks with Equivalent Circuits

Abstract

Tonpilz transducers are desirable for their superior performance in underwater target detection and communication applications. Several design schemes to widen their bandwidth have been reported, but these schemes often involve a complex structure or arrangement of additional components. In this study, a simple design is proposed to improve the bandwidth of a multimode Tonpilz transducer by using a non-uniform drive section that consists of piezoelectric stacks of various thicknesses. The efficacy of the design is illustrated with a multimode Tonpilz transducer having three lead zirconate titanate (PZT) stacks of different thicknesses. A new equivalent circuit was developed to analyze the frequency response of the transducer incorporating the non-uniform drive section and was used for rigorous analysis of the effects of varying the position and thickness of the non-uniform stacks on the transmitting characteristics of the transducer. The validity of the design was verified through the fabrication and characterization of a prototype multimode Tonpilz transducer. The developed structure can be readily extended to an arbitrary number of stacks in the Tonpilz transducer with any number of PZT disks in each stack.

Development of a Hexagonal Head Tonpilz Transducer for Underwater Applications

“…Wang, Lan and Cao described the effect of head mass material on the transducer performance [9]. Pyo et al used non-uniform piezoceramic stack to maximize the operational bandwidth [10]. The impact of surface geometry that is in contact with water on the radiation pattern was discussed by Roh et al [11].…”

Cavitation Detection in a Tonpilz-Type Transducer for Active SONAR Transmission System

“…Diverse types of transducers, such as projectors and hydrophones, exist that are used in passive or active SONAR. Figure 5 shows the tonpilz-type transducer that was used as the projector for this paper, such as the designs and models that appear in [6][7][8][9][10], which are found in active SONAR systems since they generally work in a frequency range below 20 kHz. J. Mar.…”

“…In order to control the SPA gain and decrease the total harmonic distortion (THD), sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) is usually used, as shown in [16], by comparing a triangular carrier signal (C s ) and a sine modulator signal (M s ) as shown in Figure 14. The ratio of peak voltage amplitudes of the modulating signal (V m ) and carrier signal (V p ) is the amplitude modulation index (M a ), which can vary between 0 and 1 and which is defined in Equation (7). Furthermore, M s should be considered to be 10 times less than the value of C s to obtain an acceptable waveform quality.…”

Design, development and characterization of a mid-frequency (35 khz) tonpilz transducer array from 0.675PMN-0.325PT piezoceramics

“…Crystallographically textured PMN-PT ceramics have also been investigated in the drive section and compared with the polycrystalline PMN-PT ceramics as cost-effective, alternative for single crystals [8]. In addition to changes that have been done in the active piezoelectric materials of the tonpilz, several design changes have also been investigated to increase the bandwidth and generated acoustic power of the device, such as using ceramic rings of non-uniform thickness [13] or driving the ceramics in segments [4].…”