Lead-Free Ceramic Transducers for Sonar Applications

Lead-free piezoelectric ceramic development is gaining interest from researchers and transducer designers around the world due to future compliance requirement of the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. This paper reports on Thales Australia developed soft lead-free material (Ba _l-x Ca _x )(Ti _o.95 Zr _0.05 )O ₃ (BCZT) with good temperature stability and piezoelectric characteristics suitable for Sonar hydrophones. For high power low frequency projector application, Thales Australia's hard lead-free material BaTiO) ₃ (TB-l) is evaluated. To achieve comparable performance using the lead-free material, projector design was altered.