The input electrical impedance behaves as a capacitive when a piezoelectric transducer is excited near its resonance frequency. In order to increase the energy transmission efficiency, a series or parallel inductor should be used to compensate the capacitive impedance of the piezoelectric transducer. In this paper, the effect of the series matching inductor on the electromechanical characteristics of the piezoelectric transducer is analyzed. The dependency of the resonance/anti-resonance frequency, the effective electromechanical coupling coefficient, the electrical quality factor and the electro-acoustical efficiency on the matching inductor is obtained. It is shown that apart from compensating the capacitive impedance of the piezoelectric transducer, the series matching inductor can also change the electromechanical characteristics of the piezoelectric transducer. When series matching inductor is increased, the resonance frequency is decreased and the anti-resonance unchanged; the effective electromechanical coupling coefficient is increased. For the electrical quality factor and the electroacoustic efficiency, the dependency on the matching inductor is different when the transducer is operated at the resonance and the anti-resonance frequency. The electromechanical characteristics of the piezoelectric transducer with series matching inductor are measured. It is shown that the theoretically predicted relationship between the electromechanical characteristics and the series matching inductor is in good agreement with the experimental results.

To increase the ultrasonic intensity and power of a piezoelectric transducer, a cascaded piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer with the three sets of piezoelectric ceramic stacks is analyzed. The cascaded piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer consists of four metal cylinders and three sets of piezoelectric ceramic stacks in the longitudinal direction. In analysis, the electromechanical equivalent circuit of the cascaded piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer is obtained, as well as the resonance/anti-resonance frequencies equations. By means of an analytical method, when the position of piezoelectric ceramic stacks PZT-2/PZT-3 changes, the resonance/anti-resonance frequencies and the effective electromechanical coupling coefficient of the cascaded piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer have certain characteristics. Several prototypes of the cascaded piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer are manufactured. The experimentally measured resonance frequencies are in good agreement with the theoretical and simulated results. The cascaded piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer with three sets of piezoelectric ceramic stacks presented in this paper is expected to be used in the field of high power ultrasound.

The multimode coupled vibration of Langevin composite ultrasonic transducers with conical metal mass of large cross-section is analyzed. The coupled resonance and anti- resonance frequency equations are derived and the effective electromechanical coupling coefficient is analyzed. The effect of the geometrical dimensions on the resonance frequency, the anti-resonance frequency, and the effective electromechanical coupling coefficient is studied. It is illustrated that when the radial dimension is large compared with the longitudinal dimension, the vibration of the Langevin transducer becomes a multifrequency multimode coupled vibration. Numerical methods are used to simulate the coupled vibration; the simulated results are in good agreement with those from the analytical results. Some Langevin transducers of large cross-section are designed and manufactured and their resonance frequencies are measured. It can be seen that the resonance frequencies obtained from the coupled resonance frequency equations are in good agreement with the measured results. It is expected that by properly choosing the dimensions, multifrequency Langevin transducers can be designed and used in ultrasonic cleaning, ultrasonic sonochemistry, and other applications.

The piezoelectric ultrasonic composite transducer, which can be used in either gas or liquid media, is studied in this paper. The composite transducer is composed of a longitudinal sandwich piezoelectric transducer, a mechanical transformer, and a metal circular plate in flexural vibration. Acoustic radiation is produced by the flexural circular plate, which is excited by the longitudinal sandwich transducer and transformer. Based on the classic flexural theory of plates, the equivalent lumped parameters for a plate in axially symmetric flexural vibration with free boundary conditions are obtained. The radiation impedance of the plate is derived and the relationship between the radiation impedance and the frequency is analyzed. The equivalent circuits for the plate in flexural vibration and the composite transducer are given. The vibrational modes and the harmonic response of the composite piezoelectric transducer are simulated by the numerical method. Based on the theoretical and numerical analysis, two composite piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers are designed and manufactured, their admittance-frequency curves are measured, and the resonance frequency is obtained. The flexural vibrational displacement distribution of the transducer is measured with a laser scanning vibrometer. It is shown that the theoretical results are in good agreement with the measured resonance frequency and the displacement distribution.

Three-dimensional coupled vibration of the composite cylindrical piezoelectric transducer is analyzed. The composite cylindrical piezoelectric transducer consists of an inner axially polarized piezoelectric ceramic cylinder and an outer metal cylinder with the same height. Coupled vibration of the composite cylindrical piezoelectric transducer is analyzed by equivalent elasticity method, which is an approximate analytical approach. According to this method, coupled vibration of the cylindrical transducer is regarded as an interaction between a plane radial vibration and a longitudinal vibration. The radial and longitudinal electromechanical equivalent circuits of the piezoelectric transducer are acquired. Input impedances as functions of the resonance frequency and the mechanical coupling coefficient are derived to obtain resonance frequency equations. The analytical results are supported by experimental and numerical simulated results of two prototypes of the piezoelectric transducer. The composite cylindrical piezoelectric transducer presented in this paper is superior to single cylindrical piezoelectric transducers, composite ring-type, and tube-type transducers in the field of high output power and efficiency.

This article develops a high-power piezoelectric transformer based on the sandwiched piezoelectric transducer with multioutput characteristics. An advanced high-power voltage transformation technology is realized via using the superior mechanical robustness of the sandwiched piezoelectric transducers. High-power sandwiched piezoelectric transformers (s-PTs) with the unique crisscrossed structure are constructed by four sandwiched piezoelectric transducers with two modes, i.e., antiphase mode and in-phase mode, due to the coupled vibration of the central metal cuboid. Moreover, the related electromechanical equivalent circuit model (EECM) of the s-PTs is established in which two loss factors are introduced into this model, and its impedance characteristics, voltage gains, and power gains are studied as well. The accuracy of EECM is verified by the finite element method and experiments. Results reveal that s-PT has three outputs, and its voltage gains and power ratios are affected by load resistance and loss. The output power of the s-PTs can reach at least 45 W, and the s-PTs can keep the efficiency of ∼35% under high-input electric power, which provides a new idea for high-power piezoelectric transformers.