Fabrication of 1-3 Cement-Based Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Sensors for NDE Applications

This paper described fabrication and comparison of embedded ultrasonic sensors for NDE applications. A 1-3 cement-based piezoelectric composite was used as the sensing element of the ultrasonic sensor. As a front matching layer between test material and piezoelectric materials, cement/epoxy resin was selected. In order to make the backing materials for sensors had enough acoustic attenuation performance, the backing material of sensors doped with tungsten powder. When the mass ratio of tungsten/cement backing was two and the thickness of cement/epoxy resin front-face matching was 3mm, the 1-3 cement-based piezoelectric ultrasonic sensor showed a significant enhancement in both relative pulse-echo sensitivity and-6dB bandwidth. These promising results suggested the great potential for developing high-performance ultrasonic sensors using the 1-3 cement-based piezoelectric composite.