PZT based tunable Interdigital Transducer for Lamb waves based NDT and SHM

• A novel concept of a transducer for Lamb waves based SHM systems is presented.
• The proposed transducer is based on a commonly applied Interdigital Transducer.
• The transducer׳s properties were identified both in numerical and experimental tests.
• The transducer is able to generate directional narrowband wave.

In this paper a novel concept of a tunable transducer for generation and sensing of the Lamb waves is presented. The proposed transducer is developed based on a commonly applied Interdigital Transducer (IDT). In the proposed design, further referred to as the Tunable IDT (T-IDT), the conventional comb electrodes with fixed pitch are replaced by a series of densely distributed discrete electrode strips. These electrodes can be easily interconnected in different configurations to match the required wavelength without a need of applying physical changes to the electrode layout. In order to verify the properties of the T-IDT, numerical simulations and experimental tests were performed and their results were compared to the ones obtained for the IDT. The outcomes from both the numerical and experimental analyses proved that the beampatterns generated by the T-IDT are similar to those determined for the conventional transducer. Moreover, the changes in electrode connections lead to the changes of phase-amplitude characteristics.