Instantaneous High-Power Phenomena in Pulsed Industrial NDE & Medical Ultrasonic Applications

Antonio Ramos, Enrique Riera, Abelardo Ruiz
Proceedings of the International Congress on Ultrasonics (ICU 2019), Bruxes, Belgium 3-6 September 2019

In applications classified as of very-low power (Industrial NDE & Medical Diagnosis), where the total integrated power consumed from the electrical supply, is < 1 Watt, very-high-power aspects can be observed by a rigorous analysis of their instantaneous performances in transient regime. Even though the consumed "mean" power is very small, the emitted pulsed ultrasonic intensity EPUI and the instantaneous electrical power IEP delivered to drivers (HV pulsers) during short emission stages (at PRF: 1-5 KHz), can attain higher levels than in typical CW high-power ultrasonic application: up to 2,5 Kw of instantaneous power, in each pulse. Some unforeseen aspects, like maxima levels supported by electronics (as peak intensities) and piezoelectric transducers (as peaks in driving voltage & elongation) are registered, with the risk of appearing non-linear electrical / piezoelectric responses. This must be considered in transient regime applications.