Stepped-plate transducer as an energy transmitter

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2011-10, Vol.130 (4_Supplement), p.2505-2505
• Main Authors: Hwang, Yonghwan, Je, Yub, Lee, SungQ, Hwang, Gunn, Moon, Wonkyu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.3654978

Power transmission through acoustic energy may be useful in such cases as supplying power to wireless small sensors. In the case, the radiation and reception power efficiency is important. Even in ultrasonic frequency bands, the power efficiency of most acoustic radiators in air is not high enough. The stepped-plate ultrasonic transducers, introduced by Gallego-Juarez etal. [Ultrasonics 16, 267–271(1978)], may be a good candidate for the radiator for this purpose because it can effectively generate highly directive, large-amplitude, ultrasonic sounds in air. The transducer consists of langevin transducer that causes wave generation, mechanical amplifier, and stepped radiation plate. Although it is reported to achieve 80% of power efficiency, it is not reported how to achieve maximum power efficiency. For design of large-amplitude, high-efficiency stepped-plate transducer, the design of not only individual parts but also system integration of entire transducer is important. In this research, we developed an analytical model for the whole transducer by combining continuum models of each parts and found proper design parameters for the radiation power and the power transmitting efficiencies. Then, we seek the optimal design for maximizing power efficiency through parametric analyses, and the results are confirmed through finite element method analysis. [Work supported by ETRI (South Korea).]