Hexagonal Array Structure for 2d Nde Applications

Abstract

An evaluation of different piezoelectric materials for 'SMART' structural monitoring applications: The issue of structural integrity in the host structure and mechanical compatibility of embedded transducers AIP Conf. Proc. 615, 953 (2002);ABSTRACT. This paper describes a combination of simulation and experimentation to evaluate the advantages offered by utilizing a hexagonal shaped array element in a 2D NDE array structure. The active material is a 1-3 connectivity piezoelectric composite structure incorporating triangular shaped pillars -each hexagonal array element comprising six triangular pillars. A combination of PZFlex, COMSOL and Matlab has been used to simulate the behavior of this device microstructure, for operation around 2.25MHz, with unimodal behavior and low levels of mechanical cross-coupling predicted. Furthermore, the application of hexagonal array elements enables the array aperture to increase by approximately 30%, compared to a conventional orthogonal array matrix and hence will provide enhanced volumetric coverage and SNR. Prototype array configurations demonstrate good corroboration of the theoretically predicted mechanical cross-coupling between adjacent array elements (~23dB).