Abstract:
There has been considerable effort for a number of years at ARL Penn State in using 1-3 PZT composite and PVDF material in the design and fabrication of transducers and arrays. The 1-3 PZT-5H composite material was used to design and fabricate two large-area, shaped-aperture transmit arrays (50--100 kHz and 100--200 kHz) for ocean acoustics measurements performed at the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center. These arrays produced 1- to 2-deg vertical beamwidths and horizontal beamwidths of 50 to 100 deg at source levels greater than 200 dB. An acoustic dispersion lens was designed for the higher frequency array so that high-power source levels and broad horizontal beamwidths could be achieved. The material being used is the injection molding composite produced by Material Systems, Inc., consisting of 30% PZT-5H by volume, Shore D-80 hardness voided matrix material. A receive array having the same beamwidth characteristics was fabricated from voided PVDF which was manufactured by Raytheon (now produced by Air Mar Corp.). Nested shaped sensors were etched onto the PVDF using printed circuit board techniques. Shaped sensors have demonstrated low sidelobe patterns in the axial plane. Design and test data will be presented.