Fabrication and Characterization of a Radial Ultrasonic Transducer

Abstract A new type of radial ultrasonic transducer was fabricated in this study. The performances of five radial ultrasonic transducers of different thickness were investigated in this paper. It was found that the radial ultrasonic transducers possess the greatest sensitivity when the matching layer thickness is 2.5 mm. The addition of tungsten powder in the backing layer could effectively absorb noise, which improved the acoustic attenuation performance of the backing layer and their sensitivity. To study the directivity, the ultrasonic transducer was put into water. It was found that the transducer could achieve transmitting ultrasound in all radial directions and the ultrasonic signal is similar along all radial directions, i.e., the transducer exhibits isotropic properties, which makes it a good candidate for nondestructive testing of concrete when embedded in concrete elements and structures.