Experimental validation of an hybrid analytical-numerical technique to estimate the directivity of ultrasonic piezoelectric actuators

The generation of guided waves is a common approach for structural health monitoring. The optimization of the excitation strategies very much benefits from the availability of efficient simulation tools. On the one hand, the application of finite elements (FEs) for the analysis of wave propagation problems leads to large models which tend to be computationally costly for optimization studies. On the other hand, semi-analytical approaches provide useful analytical expressions for parametric studies, but may lead to inaccurate estimations of tuning frequencies and directionality, especially at high frequencies. This is mostly because of the simplifying assumptions regarding the stress field at the interface between the actuator patches and the plate. An interesting methodology couples the analytical far-field solution of the plate response with a local FE model of the interface stresses between plate and patches. This method allows the analysis of complex actuation configurations for various purposes, such as directivity steering. In this contribution, we experimentally validate such hybrid FE-analytical technique. A Scanning Laser Doppler velocimeter is employed to retrieve both temporal and spatial Fourier Transforms on a polycarbonate plate, excited by piezoelectric patches, and the directivity patterns of the first symmetric and antisymmetric modes are compared to the numerical predictions.