Integrated high-temperature piezoelectric plate acoustic wave transducers using mode conversion

Piezoelectric thick (>66 mum) films have been directly coated onto aluminum (Al) substrates using a sol-gel spray technique. With top electrode, these films serve as integrated ultrasonic transducers (IUT), which normally operate as thickness longitudinal wave transducers. When such IUT are located at the edges of the metallic plates, they can excite and detect symmetrical, antisymmetric and shear horizontal types of plate acoustic waves (PAW) using mode conversion methods. In 2 mm thick Al plates, 2 line defects of 1 mm width and 1 mm depth were clearly detected at temperatures up to 150degC in pulse-echo mode. Results indicated that, for 2 mm thick aluminum plates, shear horizontal PAW were the best for the line defect detection. Also, the experimental results agree well with those obtained by a finite-difference-based method.