Development of an Equivalent Circuit of a Cymbal Transducer

The cymbal transducer is a miniature transducer developed from the class V flextensional transducer. Many studies to analyze this transducer have been conducted using either the finite element method or fabrication and measurement technique. Meanwhile, the equivalent circuit method is a relatively simpler, faster, and more efficient approach to conduct performance analysis of an electromechanical transducer compared with these two methods. However, despite this merit, an accurate equivalent circuit model has not been introduced for the cymbal transducer, yet. In this study, we developed a novel equivalent circuit that can accurately depict the characteristics of the cymbal transducer and enable its efficient performance evaluation. The equivalent circuit was first divided into several parts according to the structure of the transducer. Thereafter, the electromechanical and vibration characteristics of each part were analyzed to derive the values of the circuit parameters corresponding to the part. The validity of the circuit parameters was verified by comparing the impedance calculated with the circuit comprising the parameters and that measured with prototype transducers. Additional analysis of the transmitting voltage response of the transducer further confirmed the efficacy and accuracy of the developed equivalent circuit in characterizing the cymbal transducer. The new equivalent circuit developed in this work can facilitate the design and analysis of not only individual cymbal transducers but also their large arrays.