Development of novel piezoelectric ceramics and composites for transducer applications

Ahmad Safari; Stephen C. Danforth

doi:10.1117/12.307999

1 May 1998 Development of novel piezoelectric ceramics and composites for transducer applications

Ahmad Safari, Stephen C. Danforth

Proceedings Volume 3341, Medical Imaging 1998: Ultrasonic Transducer Engineering; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.307999
Event: Medical Imaging '98, 1998, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

Over the last decade, several methods were utilized to develop novel piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composites for transducer applications. Solid freeform fabrication (SFF) is one of the methods that have been emphasized recently. SFF techniques have been used to fabricate polymer, metal or ceramic structures on a fixtureless platform, directly from a computer aided design file. During design verification or the product development stage, SFF techniques offer great flexibility to manufacture prototypes with various shapes, sizes and functionality. Several SFF techniques, fused deposition modeling, fused deposition of ceramics, and sanders prototyping were used to fabricate a variety of novel piezoelectric ceramic and ceramic/polymer composite transducers at Rutgers University. The composites were processed either by a direct, indirect or soft tooling route. A variety of novel composite structures, including annular ring, hexagonal pattern with octagonal rods, and oriented fibers, have been made using the flexibility provided by the above processes. Volume fraction gradients have been incorporated into some of these designs with the ceramic volume fraction decreasing form the center towards the edges, following wither a linear, exponential or gaussian distribution. Novel radial composites being pursued in our labs, including fabrication of fine scale, large area, flexible PZT composites using thin PZT fibers, and the preparation of a new PNN-PZ-PT composition for ultrasonic transducer applications. The design, fabrication and electromechanical properties of these structures are also discussed in this paper.

Citation Download Citation

Ahmad Safari and Stephen C. Danforth "Development of novel piezoelectric ceramics and composites for transducer applications", Proc. SPIE 3341, Medical Imaging 1998: Ultrasonic Transducer Engineering, (1 May 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.307999

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