Transmission Phase Control of Annular Array Transducers for Efficient Second Harmonic Generation in the Presence of a Stress-Free Boundary

The through-transmission (TT) method is mainly used to measure the amplitude of the second harmonic from which the acoustic nonlinear parameter is determined for early damage detection of materials. The pulse echo (PE) method, however, has been excluded from nonlinear studies of solid materials because the stress-free boundary suppresses the generation of second harmonics. It is more demanding to develop the PE method for practical applications and this paper considers a novel phase shift technique of annular array transducers to improve second harmonic generation (SHG) at the stress-free boundary. The fundamental and second harmonic fields after phase-shifted radiation are calculated, and their received amplitudes are investigated. The phase difference between the two second harmonic components after reflection from the stress-free boundary is analyzed to explain the enhanced SHG. The PE method with optimal phase shift can generate an improved second harmonic amplitude as high as about 45% of the TT method. Four element array transducers are also found to be more efficient in improved SHG than two element transducers.