Acoustic Radiation of Axially Stepped-Thickness Piezoelectric Cylindrical Shells

In this work, a new design method is proposed to intensify the focused acoustic field generated inside a circular cylindrical piezoelectric transducer. The proposed design incorporates a stepped-thickness piezoelectric transducer which has thickness variations along the length. The location of these steps are identified based on the mode shape analysis of a uniform-thickness tube. Once the step locations are identified, two cases are considered with internal and external steps. Acoustic radiation characteristics and mode shapes are compared with the uniform-thickness shell. All the investigations are performed using ANSYS. An increase in the sound pressure level is obtained utilizing the stepped-thickness tube at the same input power.