A Comparison of the Underwater Acoustic Performance of Cymbal-Based Projectors to 1-3 Piezocomposite Materials

The performance of two different ‘cymbal’ actuator-based underwater acoustic projector designs is compared. One projector design is a 101 mm by 101 mm Thin Panel potted in polyurethane. The other is a 152.4 mm by 76.2 mm tungsten-backed flat panel embedded in a syntactic foam frame. Both projector designs are characterized in-air and evaluated in-water. The results of the in-water studies are based on a 100 Watt power supply. Comparing to 1-3 piezocomposite materials with the same radiating area and similar thickness, these cymbal-based projectors appear to be best suited for use at frequencies below 4–5 kHz, with particular emphasis in the 1 kHz range. The cymbal-based devices described in this study are strictly prototypes and are not designed for a specific application. Nevertheless, the results indicate that if the acoustic aperture of these projectors were scaled to the appropriate dimensions, they could meet the design goals of many low frequency Navy applications where source levels > 180 dB from a thin package are desired