• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.269-275
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• 2007

In this study, ultrasonic transducers for non-destructive contact measurement of whole fruits were developed. The design parameters for ultrasonic transducer such as acoustical impedance of fruits, kinds of piezoelectric materials, ultrasonic wave frequency, and transducer diameter were investigated. In order to match the acoustical impedance between piezoelectric material and fruit, various materials were fabricated and evaluated. Also to control the sensitivity and bandwidth of the ultrasonic transducer, various backing materials were fabricated and evaluated. Especially, the wear plate of the ultrasonic transducer was designed and fabricated considering the curvature of fruit. The central frequencies of two developed ultrasonic transducers were about 100 kHz and 200 kHz, respectively. With the developed ultrasonic transducers, non-destructive evaluation of the fruit will be possible.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1055-1065
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• 2016

An anisotropic ultrasonic transducer is proposed for Lamb wave applications, such as passive damage or impact localization based on ultrasonic guided wave theory. This transducer is made from a PMNPT single crystal, and has different piezoelectric coefficients $d_{31}$ and $d_{32}$, which are the same for the conventional piezoelectric materials, such as Lead zirconate titanate (PZT). Different piezoelectric coefficients result in directionality of guided wave generated by this transducer, in other words, it is an anisotropic ultrasonic transducer. And thus, it has different sensitivity in comparison with conventional ultrasonic transducer. The anisotropic one can provide more information related to the direction when it is used as sensors. This paper first shows its detailed properties, including analytical formulae and finite elements simulations. Then, its application is described.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.151-161
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• 2018

A new type of cascade sandwiched piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer is presented and studied. The cascade transducer is composed of two traditional longitudinally sandwiched piezoelectric transducers, which are connected together in series mechanically and in parallel electrically. Based on the analytical method, the electromechanical equivalent circuit of the cascade transducer is derived and the resonance/anti-resonance frequency equations are obtained. The impedance characteristics and the vibrational modes of the transducer are analyzed. By means of numerical method, the dependency of the resonance/anti-resonance frequency and the effective electromechanical coupling coefficient on the geometrical dimensions of the cascade transducer are studied and some interesting conclusions are obtained. Two prototypes of the cascade transducers are designed and made; the resonance/anti-resonance frequency is measured. It is shown that the analytical resonance/anti-resonance frequencies are in good agreement with the experimental results. It is expected that this kind of cascade transducer can be used in large power and high intensity ultrasonic applications, such as ultrasonic liquid processing, ultrasonic metal machining and ultrasonic welding and soldering.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.189-196
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• 2010

This study was conducted to develop an non-contact ultrasonic transducer for measurement of fruit firmness. The center frequency of non-contact ultrasonic transducer was 500 kHz. As an active element of non-contact ultrasonic transducer, the 1-3 piezoelectric composite material was selected. That material has high piezoelectric properties such as electro-mechanical coupling factor, $k_t$ and piezoelectric voltage constant, $d_{33}$ and also that material has low acoustical impedance which enables to matching the acoustical impedances between piezoelectric material and air. As a front matching material between 1-3 piezoelectric composite material and air, various kinds of paper with different thickness were tested. To control the dead-zone of the fabricated non-contact ultrasonic transducer, the backing material composed of epoxy resin and tungsten powder were made and evaluated. The fabricated non-contact ultrasonic transducer for fruit showed that the cneter frequency, bandwidth and beamwidth were approximately 480 kHz, 30 % and 12 mm, respectively. It was concluded that non-contact measurement of apple firmness would be possible by using the fabricated non-contact ultrasonic transducer.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.65.3-65
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• 2001

In order to apply for pickling line in cold rolling process, a high power magnetostrictive ultrasonic transducer was developed. The transducer is expected to overcome the shortcomings of conventional high power ultrasonic transducers. The transducer consists of Fe-Co-V alloy sheets for the magnetostrictive material, an ultrasonic horn made of Hastelloy to withstand acid solution, and electric driving circuit. In the development, the transducer was designed with the theoretical and numerical methods such as finite element method, and was characterized with experimental water tanks. The developed transducers turned out to be able to generate the sound pressure up to 20,000 Pa, and to be suitable for application ...

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.43 no.3 s.309
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• pp.41-50
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• 2006

This paper presents a novel ultrasonic sensor system to overcome limited distance detection range that can be measured only more than 30cm by single ultrasonic transducer. This is accomplished by separation of receiving capacitive ultrasonic transducer from transmitting capacitive ultrasonic transducer. And hardwares and software of the system are described in detail. The system makes very close range as well as long range detect by wireless precisely. Frequency of trigger pulse is 10Hz, but it is very low frequency for transmitting data in wireless module. Therefore, for triggering between receiver and transmitter, an algorithm for mixing and distinguishing trigger pulse from carrier pulse by software is proposed. The system is designed by common microprocessor 8051. The performance of the proposed method has been assessed through two types. The first, transmitting and receiving transducer are put on both sides. And then, distance of two point is measured as far as 0mm. Secondly, transmitting transducer send out ultrasonic pulse and measure the time of flight(TOF) until a first echo from an object detected by the detached receiving transducer. The distance between the detached transducers and a reflecting object is measured as far as 7cm. Images of measured ultrasonic waves and TOF for two methods presented to prove effectiveness of results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.559-567
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• 2015

The paper deals with an ultrasonic transducer invented for measuring both flow velocity and pipe thickness. The structure of the transducer is based on the conventional transducers for measuring flow velocity by obliquely transmitting ultrasonic waves to the flow direction. The transducer additionally generates ultrasonic waves transmitting vertically to a pipe for measuring pipe thickness. By measuring flow velocity with the invented transducer and a conventional oblique-incidence transducer and comparing their results, the accuracy of the flow velocity measurement of the invented one was evaluated. By measuring specimen thickness with the invented transducer and a conventional normal-incidence transducer and comparing their results, the accuracy of the thickness measurement of the invented one was evaluated.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.825-830
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• 1996

In this study, Characteristics of Ultrasonic Transducer fabricated with porous piezoelectric resonator, 3-D underwater object restoration using the self made ultrasonic transducer and modified SCL(Simple Competitive Learning) neural network are investigated. The self-made transducer was satisfied the required condition of ultrasonic transducer in water, and the modified SCL neural network using the acquired object data 16*16 low resolution image was used for object restoration of $32{\times}32$ high resolution image. The experimental results have shown that the ultrasonic transducer fabricated with porous piezoelectric resonator could be applied for SONAR system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.316-319
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• 1996

In this study, characteristics of ultrasonic transducer fabricated with porous piezoelectric resonator are investigated, 3-D underwater object recognition using the self-made ultrasonic transducer and SOFM(Self-Organizing Feature Map) neural network are presented. The self-made transducer was satisfied the required condition of ultrasonic transducer in water, and the recognition rates for the training data and the testing data were 100 and 95.3% respectively. The experimental results have shown that the ultrasonic transducer fabricated with porous piezoelectric resonator could be applied for sonar system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.576-581
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• 2007

Ultrasonic nonlinearity has been considered as a promising method to evaluate the micro damage of material; however, its magnitude is so small that its measurement is not easy. Especially, when we use contact PZT transducer, if the contacting pressure is not kept in constant during the measurement then there exists extraneous fluctuation in the measured nonlinearity caused by the unstable contact condition, In this paper, we developed a pneumatic control system to keep the contacting pressure of transducer in constant during the measurement and analyzed the effect of contacting pressure to the ultrasonic nonlinearity measurement As a result, we found that the pressure of transducer in our measurement system should be greater than 170 kPa to measure the ultrasonic nonlinear parameter in stable with no dependency on the contacting pressure.