Fully integrated fused quartz acoustic horns for structural health monitoring

• Main Authors: He, J. (Author), Hileman, Z. (Author), Homa, D. (Author), Kong, Q. (Author), Pickrell, G. (Author), Wang, A. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Acoustical Society of America 2019
• Subjects: Acoustic fields; Acoustic sources; Acoustic waveguides; acoustics; Acoustics; Coupling efficiency; Current sensing; devices; equipment design; Equipment Design; Fully integrated; High sensitivity; materials testing; Materials Testing; Non destructive; Quartz; Signal to noise ratio; silicon dioxide; Structural health monitoring; Structural sensing; transducer; Transducers; Waveguides
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 Non-destructive acoustic structural sensing is an imperative technology, applicable to many different fields such as aerospace and civil engineering. To maintain a high sensitivity or to mitigate acoustic loss, it is important to increase the signal-to-noise ratio by improving coupling efficiency from acoustic sources to the object under test, such as an acoustic waveguide. Here, a fully integrated fused quartz horn design is combined with a fused quartz acoustic waveguide. The resulting system is intended to demonstrate a high accuracy low cost alternative to current sensing systems and the present article report on the viability of using a merged acoustic horn and waveguide. © 2019 Acoustical Society of America.