Characterization of Backing Layer Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Transducers for Underwater Communication

Underwater ultrasonic communication is a methods of sending and receiving messages for underwater level. Nowadays there is a lot application that have been discovered for example telecommunication between submarines There are several ways to communicate underwater level but the most common communication using hydrophone. Hydrophone can be build based on sensing element using piezoelectric material or capacitive material. Currently hydrophones based piezoelectric material are low sensitivity and narrow bandwidth. This will affect the sonar application when used the low performance of hydrophones. This project is aimed to design, simulate and characterize a new backing layer structure for piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer applied in underwater communication using finite element analysis (FEA). The study was included a different types of backing layers that applied for a new structure backing layer. There were 3 types of backing layer constructed, namely wood (pine), plastic (acrylic) and metal (titanium). The frequency ranges of 1 kHz to 100 kHz were applied in simulation. Piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer with titanium 21S metal has wide bandwidth of 53.7 %. The transmitting voltage response of the device was 110 dB rel 1 μPa/V. The material of titanium 21S metal has improved transducer performance where it was the highest performance between other materials.