Phononic Crystals for Suppressing Crosstalk in Ultrasonic Flowmeters

Ultrasonic flowmeters that use transit-time ultrasonic transducers face measurement errors due to “crosstalk,” whereby the working signal travels through the pipe wall and couplings, interfering with the signal from the fluid. Although various procedures have been proposed to solve the issue of crosstalk, they’re limited to low-frequency ranges, or they are not effective in high-pressure environments. We propose a mounting mechanism based on a single-phase 3-D phononic crystal (PnC) waveguide that can mitigate crosstalk at high frequencies (megahertz range) and thus improve the flowmeters’ measurement accuracy. PnCs are artificial materials consisting of periodically arranged scatterers thereby showing bandgaps (BGs)—ranges of frequencies where elastic/acoustic waves are attenuated—due to Bragg scattering. We design PnC wave filters by engineering the BG frequency range to the working signal of the ultrasonic flowmeter. We then fabricate the waveguide using additive manufacturing and connect it between the transducer and the pipe wall. Transient ultrasonic experiments show that transducers with PnC mountings attain a 40 dB crosstalk reduction in comparison with a standard transducer mounting configuration.