Design of ultrasonic wedge transducer

Cones and wedges inserted between an ultrasonic transducer and the specimen provide the transducer (circular or rectangular shape) with enhanced capability for point or line contact with the specimen. Such an arrangement is useful in that the transducer can be used for transmitting to and receiving from a point (or line) source, and that it can eliminate the undesirable aperture effect that makes the transducer blind to waves traveling in certain directions and those of certain frequencies. In this paper, a comprehensive numerical analysis based on a wave propagation model is carried out for the study of characteristics and parameters of cones and wedges influencing their performance. We study the effect of the dimensions, shape and aperture on the frequency response and the angle of incidence of the wave. For computational accuracy and efficiency, the boundary element method is used in the analysis. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.