Hydrophone Arrays Assembled from PZT Ceramic Foams

Abstract

A 3 × 3 hydrophone array for low frequency applications was constructed from reticulated PZT ceramic foams. The hydrophone array was tested for receiving sensitivity and compared with single element PZT-air and dense PZT hydrophones. The composite array showed a flat response in the 20 kHz–100 kHz frequency range while the single element hydrophone displayed broadening radial resonance around 50 kHz. The flat, broadband response indicates that the radial resonance is suppressed by both porous nature of the PZT-air composites and the array construction of the hydrophone. The sensitivity of the array hydrophone was –205 dB re 1 Vμ Pa⁻¹.

Keywords:

• Piezocomposites
• porous structures
• hydrophones
• underwater acoustics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors (HK) and (RR) are grateful to EPSRC and the Department of Science and Technology (India) for providing financial support, respectively.