Pipe organ air-coupled broad bandwidth transducer

Zhu, B. and Tiller, B. and Windmill, J.F.C. and Mulholland, A.J. and Walker, A.J. (2017) Pipe organ air-coupled broad bandwidth transducer. In: 2017 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS 2017, 2017-09-06 - 2017-09-09.

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Abstract

Air-coupled transducers are used to conduct fast non-contact inspections in NDT. Normally, the bandwidth of a conventional transducer can be enhanced, but with a cost to its sensitivity. However, low sensitivity is very disadvantageous in air-coupled devices. This paper presents a methodology for improving the bandwidth of an air-coupled micro-machined ultrasonic transducer (MUT) without sensitivity loss by connecting a number of resonating pipes of various length to a cavity in the backplate. The design is inspired by the pipe organ musical instrument, where the resonant frequency (pitch) of each pipe is mainly determined by its length.