Design and simulation of rigidly mounted acoustic vector sensor

According to the inconvenience of underwater co-oscillating acoustic vector sensor´s suspension systems which consist of elastic elements and rigid support structure around the vector sensor, a rigidly mounted acoustic vector sensor for measuring pressure gradient is introduced in this paper. The basic structure of the rigidly mounted acoustic vector sensor consists of two primary components: disk-shape piezoelectric sensing element and cylinder part fixed with the sensing element. When the cylinder part is stimulated by sound wave, the piezoelectric sensing element transforms the resultant strain into a voltage output signal. The finite element model of the acoustic vector sensor was established by ANSYS, and the influence of geometric and material parameters on the characteristics of the acoustic vector sensor was analyzed based on its finite element model.