Most works that address 2-D array ultrasonic transducers for underwater applications are about the geometry aspects of the array and beamforming techniques to make 3-D images. They look for techniques to reduce the number of elements from wide apertures, maintaining the side lobes and the grating lobes at acceptable levels, but not many details about the materials and fabrication processes are described. To overcome these gaps, this paper presents in detail the development of a 2-D array ultrasonic transducer prototype that can individually emit and receive ultrasonic pulses to make 3-D images of immersed reflectors within a volume of interest (VOI). It consists of a 4 × 4 matrix ultrasonic transducer with a central frequency of 480 kHz. Each element is a 5 mm sided square cut into a 1–3 piezocomposite. The center-to-center distance of two contiguous elements (pitch) was chosen to be greater than half wavelength, to increase the amplitude of emission and reception of signals with larger elements. Artifacts generated by grating lobes were avoided by restricting the field of view in the azimuth and elevation directions within 40° × 40° and applying the sign coherence factor (SCF) filter. Two types of backing layer materials were tested, one with air and another made of epoxy resin, on the transducers called T1 and T2, respectively. The pulse echoes measured with T1 had 2.6 dB higher amplitude than those measured with T2, and the bandwidths were 54% and 50% @ −6 dB, respectively, exciting the element with a single rectangular negative pulse. The 3-D images obtained with full matrix capture (FMC) data sets acquired of objects from 0.2 to 1.15 m motivate the development of a 2-D array transducer with more elements, to increase the angular resolution and the range.
Articles you may be interested inNon-intrusive, high-resolution, real-time, two-dimensional imaging of multiphase materials using acoustic array sensors Rev. Sci. Instrum. 86, 044902 (2015); 10.1063/1.4915894 Broadband ultrasonic linear array using ternary PIN-PMN-PT single crystal Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 095001 (2012); 10.1063/1.4748522Fast simulation of second harmonic ultrasound field using a quasi-linear method Abstract. This paper presents a technique for improving the internal imaging of a solid object immersed in water using an ultrasonic array. This technique consists in determining the position and shape of a convex object surface using a combination of synthetic transmit aperture (STA) and sign coherence factor (SCF) methods. The SCF attenuates the grating lobe noise. The technique is applied to a cylindrical aluminium object with internal holes simulating defects. The first step is the acquisition of a sequence of STA images with SCF, using a distinct group of adjacent array elements for each image. In the second step, a circle is fitted to the positions of the peak values in each image. Finally, using the Fermat's principle and this circle as the interface between the water and the metallic object, the propagation delays from the array elements to the image grid points may be calculated and used in another STA image. In this final image, the small holes in the cylindrical object can clearly be identified. The effects of the SCF for a large diameter circular reflector are simulated and compared with experimental data.
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