3A-1 Optimized Transducer Design Techniques: Towards a More Scientific Approach of Obtaining Geometrical Designs for Array Transducers (Invited)

A method is described that addresses the fundamental problem of obtaining optimized geometrical transducer designs meeting stated inspection or imaging goals. Previous work applicable to a maximum of two ultrasonic media with a fixed shape boundary and one-dimensional transducer arrays is extended to M media with variably shaped multiple interfaces and two-dimensional array subdivision. Cost function formulae suitable for minimizing the number of array elements are provided for different types of two-dimensional subdivision methods. An example is provided for variable water path inspection of objects with varying concave cylindrical surfaces over large depth range. The developed framework and computational tools are sufficiently general for application to a wide array of ultrasonic applications both in NDT and in medical ultrasound