Study of SH acoustic radiation field excited by a piezoelectric strip

Journal article, 2005

A piezoelectric strip of infinite length but with finite width and thickness is placed on top of an isotropic elastic half space. The piezoelectric strip is excited by an electrical signal and the acoustic field is generated. The piezoelectric strip is of type 6 mm crystal system oriented along its length direction. The SH wave is studied for the structure of this piezoelectric transducer. At first, the field is expanded as a Fourier series in the piezoelectric strip and as a Fourier integral in the half space. Then, the response of the solution inside the piezoelectric strip and in the half space is obtained by the boundary conditions. The acoustic field distribution is analyzed and compared to that obtained by the traditional method. Finally, the acoustic radiation field at the far field is investigated by the saddle point method and the directional factor is analyzed. It is found that the traditional method is valid only in the case where the product of the frequency with the width of the piezoelectric strip is less than 1 kHz · m. The stress and displacement in the piezoelectric strip are oscillatory distributions when the frequency increases. The greater the frequency, the greater the difference between the traditional method and the present method.