A parametric study of ultrasonic beam profiles for a linear phased array transducer

A numerical simulation model is presented to investigate the influences of design parameters of linear phased array transducers on beam focusing and steering performance. The characteristic of ultrasonic beam profiles has been simulated on the basis of the Huygen's superposition principle. For the simulation, a linear phased array is considered as the composition of finite number of elements separated by equidistance. Individual elements are considered as two-dimensional point sources. The waves generated from piezoelectric elements are considered as simplified transient ultrasonic waves that are constructed with the cosine function enveloped with a Hanning window. The characteristic of ultrasonic wave propagation into a medium from the phased array transducer is described. The effects of the number, the interelement spacing, steering angle, the focal length, and frequency bandwidth of the piezoelectric elements on beam directivity and ultrasonic pressure field in a linear phased array transducer are systematically discussed.