The behavior of a high-temperature-immersion ultrasonic probe without a delay line using a PbTiO 3 /Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 (PT/PZT) ultrasonic transducer was investigated empirically. A >100-µm-thick PT/PZT film was fabricated on a 200-µm-thick stainless steel substrate. After PT/PZT film fabrication, the substrate was bonded to a stainless steel pipe using a high-temperature waterproof adhesive material. The probe was tested in a water bath from room temperature to 100 °C for system verification. During three thermal cycles, the ultrasonic echoes had a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and reasonable repeatability. After that, the same probe was verified by testing it in the silicone oil from room temperature to 200 °C. The test was also repeated three times and the probe successfully demonstrated high-temperature durability, a high SNR, and repeatability throughout the experiments.

Continuous ultrasonic in-situ monitoring for industrial applications is difficult owing to the high operating temperatures in industrial fields. It is expected that ultrasonic transducers consisting of a CaBi4Ti4O15(CBT)/Pb(Zr,Ti)O3(PZT) sol-gel composite could be one solution for ultrasonic nondestructive testing (NDT) above 500 °C because no couplant is required and CBT has a high Curie temperature. To verify the high temperature durability, CBT/PZT sol-gel composite films were fabricated on titanium substrates by spray coating, and the CBT/PZT samples were tested in a furnace at various temperatures. Reflected echoes with a high signal-to-noise ratio were observed up to 600 °C. A thermal cycle test was conducted from room temperature to 600 °C, and no significant deterioration was found after the second thermal cycle. To investigate the long-term high-temperature durability, a CBT/PZT ultrasonic transducer was tested in the furnace at 600 °C for 36 h. Ultrasonic responses were recorded every 3 h, and the sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio were stable throughout the experiment.

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Ultrasonic transducers made of sol–gel composites have been developed for nondestructive testing (NDT) applications in various industrial fields. Stencil printing of sol–gel composite films has been developed for the reduction of fabrication time and cost. However, it was necessary to develop low frequency (<10 MHz) ultrasonic transducers for inspecting industrial structures under severe high-temperature conditions, because high-frequency components suffer attenuation effect caused by high temperature. To realize this, increasing the thickness of Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT)/PZT films fabricated by stencil printing was attempted in this study. The samples were fabricated by single-layer stencil printing with a thick stencil mask and multilayer pure stencil printing with prespraying and postspraying. The film thicknesses were 150–185 µm, and the center frequencies of ultrasonic responses were 6.0–6.4 MHz. Throughout three thermal cycles of up to 370 K, the ultrasonic performance was stable, and the frequency characteristics were not markedly different from the beginning to the end of the test. Therefore, low-frequency ultrasonic transducers were successfully manufactured using a stencil-printing-based technique.

The PbTiO3/Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PT/PZT) sol–gel composite is a promising piezoelectric material because of its high piezoelectricity and temperature stability up to 360 °C. However, the poling of PT/PZT required high temperature owing to the high coercive field of PT, which made the poling of PT/PZT troublesome. In this research, conventional DC corona poling and pulse discharge at room temperature were attempted for PT/PZT samples. As a result, PT/PZT poled by pulse discharge generation at room temperature showed comparable ultrasonic responses to that poled by DC corona discharge generation at a high temperature. Therefore, room-temperature poling of PT/PZT was successfully carried out by pulse discharge, and poling time was markedly reduced from ∼15 min to 15 s.