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I have an ultrasonic piezo transducer that I am running with a 60Vpp signal. The material is probably PZT or similar. Can anyone supply a ballpark figure for the likely peak to peak mechanical displacement of the face of it? The frequency is around 100kHz and the diameter of the face 25mm. Are we talking microns, nanometers...?

  • Depends on the thickness of the material, the electrode configuration, the quality factor of the resonator and how close you are to the resonance frequency. There is really no way to guesstimate this without additional parameters. Having said that, a much better idea would be to actually measure the displacement, rather than have people who don't have access to the item take wild guesses. Did you actually try a measurement? If you haven't, I would call this "insufficient effort". – CuriousOne Dec 13 '14 at 11:23
  • So how would I measure a displacement that is likely a few microns without getting some very specialist equipment? –  Dec 13 '14 at 11:58
  • Probably microns

    http://www.smashingrobotics.com/introduction-to-piezoelectric-actuators/

     –  Dec 13 '14 at 12:05
  • That's the most fun part of physics... to figure out how one can do amazingly sensitive measurements with very simple means. In this case an optical measurement seems fitting, since it requires very little (and very cheap) equipment and only modest experimental skills. Reflect a laser beam of the surface and measure the angular displacement. – CuriousOne Dec 13 '14 at 12:06
  • How about contacting the manufacturer? Never speculate when you can test; avoid testing when you can get reliable data from the source. – Carl Witthoft Dec 13 '14 at 12:41
  • @CarlWitthoft: Never assume that manufacturer data is reliable AND that you actually understand it correctly. Based on my practical experience it is very rare that manufacturer data is both reliable and properly evaluated by the user. – CuriousOne Dec 13 '14 at 13:22
  • You're buying from the wrong company :-). Point taken, tho' I would have hoped that the source data at least gets the OP into the right order of magnitude for his displacement estimate. – Carl Witthoft Dec 13 '14 at 13:36
  • The company that makes these transducers is not especially hitech. They make them, they work as specified, and that's all that's tested. As a point of interest, we are using it to make position measurements with a repeatability of around 60nm (yes, nanometers!). I was just curious. –  Dec 13 '14 at 14:50

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