Comparison of Two Models for Power Dissipation and Temperature in Piezoelectric Transducers

This study compares the power dissipation and temperature profile in a single element acoustic transducer as a result of two of the most common representations of loss in piezoelectric materials. The first model, described in the IEEE Standard on Piezoelectricity, represents losses using the mechanical quality and the dielectric loss. The second model, described by Holland, represents loss through complex material constants. The difference between these representations is quantified by using the 1D Mason model to simulate the power dissipation in the transducer. The result of this study shows that there is a discrepancy in the power dissipation and therefore temperature profile between the two different representations. This study concludes that mixing the two representations can drastically affect the estimated power dissipation.