Newly developed cladded acoustic rods

The acoustic propagation characteristics of several recently developed acoustic rods, cladded metallic rods, tapered cladded silicon rods and cladded silica rods with slanted ends, are presented. The cladded metallic rods have the obvious advantages of machinability and bendability. Since the acoustic energy is concentrated in the core, the cladding region can be made thick so that it may be machined to adapt to a particular application. The tapered rods can accommodate a large ultrasonic transducer with ease at the large end but provide good spatial resolution at the small end. Echoes with good signal to noise ratio (SNR) have been obtained in the pulse-echo measurements. The cladded rods with slanted ends have demonstrated that they could be used to probe or insonify the materials sideways