Equivalent properties of 1-3 piezocomposites made of PMN-PT single crystals for underwater SONAR transducers

The design of a piezocomposite transducer is accomplished by such advanced modeling technique as finite element method (FEM). However, accurate analysis of a 1-3 piezocomposite transducer enforces three dimensional (3D) modeling that requires very fine meshing of the transducer structure, which is frequently over affordable calculation resource capacity. In order to simplify the FEM model for complicated underwater transducers, the 1-3 piezocomposite needs to be simulated with a single phase material of equivalent properties. The 1-3 piezocomposite material in this study is made of the PMN-PT single crystal as the active material and urethane as the matrix material. Theoretical models for the calculation of new material parameters of 1-3 composites having fine lateral periodicity have been derived. For the validation of the equivalent properties, TE (thickness extensional), LE (length extensional), LTE (length thickness extensional), and TS (thickness shear) FEM models have been built to compare the impedance-frequency spectra of the 1-3 composite material and an equivalent material. Through the simulation with the models, all the equivalent elastic, dielectric and piezoelectric constants of the single phase material are determined. Further, 3D and axis-symmetric 2D FEM models of a multi-mode Tonpilz transducer have been constructed with the equivalent material properties. The equivalent material provides a very good correlation between the 2D and 3D transducer models, which is not easily attainable with the full 1-3 piezocomposite model. This result confirms the efficacy of the equivalent material properties of the 1-3 piezocomposites.