Effect of Electrode Configuration on High Temperature Thickness Shear Gallium Phosphate Transducer

Abstract

Gallium phosphate single crystal has a very stable thermal response, ideal for high temperature applications such as transducers for in-service monitoring of HT infrastructure in Power and Oil & Gas industries. Broadband transducers are designed to resonate with a specific mode of vibration within a frequency range of interest. This desired frequency response depends on how the transducer is mounted on the structure and the target defect sensitivity. Electrode configurations are defined to achieve the transducer design. This study investigates the parallel and wrap-around electrode configurations on the transducer response. An electro-mechanical finite element model was developed to analyse the transducer response and predicted a disparity in the modes of vibration between the two configurations within the same frequency range. This model was experimentally validated by measuring the displacement patterns using 3D Laser Doppler Vibrometry.

Keywords

• gallium phosphate
• thickness shear
• electrode configuration
• ultrasonic transducer