Theoretical modeling and experimental verification of an improved radial composite transducer consisting of a metal ring and a radially polarized piezoelectric stack.

In the ring radial transducer, the wall thickness of the radially polarized piezoelectric ceramic is limited by the polarization technology and operating voltage, resulting in the limited power capacity and vibration ability of the transducer. Hence, an improved novel radial composite transducer (nRCT) is proposed in this paper, which consists of a radially polarized piezoelectric stack and a metal ring. Piezoelectric stack is used to enhance vibration and effectively solve the problem of difficult excitation caused by large wall thickness. A new electromechanical equivalent circuit model (EECM) of the nRCT in radial vibration is established, and the relationship between frequency characteristics of the nRCT and geometric size is analyzed. The finite element method (FEM) is used to carry out numerical modeling of the nRCT and the traditional radial composite transducer (tRCT), and preliminarily verify the calculation results of EECM. Compared with the tRCT, under the same electrical excitation, the equivalent electrical impedance of the nRCT designed in this paper decreases to 26%, and the radial vibration displacement increases to 142%. Finally, the nRCT and the tRCT are fabricated, and the experimental results have well verified the results of the theoretical analysis. The proposed radial piezoelectric stack model provides a new idea for the optimal design of radial vibration piezoelectric devices, which is expected to be further applied to the design of hydrophones, piezoelectric transformers, and medical ultrasound devices.