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CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization

The paper deals with a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT)-based sensor dedicated to the detection of acoustic emissions from damaged structures. This work aims to explore different ways to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and the sensitivity of such sensors focusing on the design...

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Autores principales: Boubenia, Redha, Le Moal, Patrice, Bourbon, Gilles, Ramasso, Emmanuel, Joseph, Eric
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7999056/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33799399
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21062042
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author Boubenia, Redha
Le Moal, Patrice
Bourbon, Gilles
Ramasso, Emmanuel
Joseph, Eric
author_facet Boubenia, Redha
Le Moal, Patrice
Bourbon, Gilles
Ramasso, Emmanuel
Joseph, Eric
author_sort Boubenia, Redha
collection PubMed
description The paper deals with a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT)-based sensor dedicated to the detection of acoustic emissions from damaged structures. This work aims to explore different ways to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and the sensitivity of such sensors focusing on the design and packaging of the sensor, electrical connections, signal processing, coupling conditions, design of the elementary cells and operating conditions. In the first part, the CMUT-R100 sensor prototype is presented and electromechanically characterized. It is mainly composed of a CMUT-chip manufactured using the MUMPS process, including 40 circular 100 µm radius cells and covering a frequency band from 310 kHz to 420 kHz, and work on the packaging, electrical connections and signal processing allowed the signal-to-noise ratio to be increased from 17 dB to 37 dB. In the second part, the sensitivity of the sensor is studied by considering two contributions: the acoustic-mechanical one is dependent on the coupling conditions of the layered sensor structure and the mechanical-electrical one is dependent on the conversion of the mechanical vibration to electrical charges. The acoustic-mechanical sensitivity is experimentally and numerically addressed highlighting the care to be taken in implementation of the silicon chip in the brass housing. Insertion losses of about 50% are experimentally observed on an acoustic test between unpackaged and packaged silicon chip configurations. The mechanical-electrical sensitivity is analytically described leading to a closed-form amplitude of the detected signal under dynamic excitation. Thus, the influence of geometrical parameters, material properties and operating conditions on sensitivity enhancement is clearly established: such as smaller electrostatic air gap, and larger thickness, Young’s modulus and DC bias voltage.
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spelling pubmed-79990562021-03-28 CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization Boubenia, Redha Le Moal, Patrice Bourbon, Gilles Ramasso, Emmanuel Joseph, Eric Sensors (Basel) Article The paper deals with a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT)-based sensor dedicated to the detection of acoustic emissions from damaged structures. This work aims to explore different ways to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and the sensitivity of such sensors focusing on the design and packaging of the sensor, electrical connections, signal processing, coupling conditions, design of the elementary cells and operating conditions. In the first part, the CMUT-R100 sensor prototype is presented and electromechanically characterized. It is mainly composed of a CMUT-chip manufactured using the MUMPS process, including 40 circular 100 µm radius cells and covering a frequency band from 310 kHz to 420 kHz, and work on the packaging, electrical connections and signal processing allowed the signal-to-noise ratio to be increased from 17 dB to 37 dB. In the second part, the sensitivity of the sensor is studied by considering two contributions: the acoustic-mechanical one is dependent on the coupling conditions of the layered sensor structure and the mechanical-electrical one is dependent on the conversion of the mechanical vibration to electrical charges. The acoustic-mechanical sensitivity is experimentally and numerically addressed highlighting the care to be taken in implementation of the silicon chip in the brass housing. Insertion losses of about 50% are experimentally observed on an acoustic test between unpackaged and packaged silicon chip configurations. The mechanical-electrical sensitivity is analytically described leading to a closed-form amplitude of the detected signal under dynamic excitation. Thus, the influence of geometrical parameters, material properties and operating conditions on sensitivity enhancement is clearly established: such as smaller electrostatic air gap, and larger thickness, Young’s modulus and DC bias voltage. MDPI 2021-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7999056/ /pubmed/33799399 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21062042 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Boubenia, Redha
Le Moal, Patrice
Bourbon, Gilles
Ramasso, Emmanuel
Joseph, Eric
CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization
title CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization
title_full CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization
title_fullStr CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization
title_full_unstemmed CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization
title_short CMUT-Based Sensor for Acoustic Emission Application: Experimental and Theoretical Contributions to Sensitivity Optimization
title_sort cmut-based sensor for acoustic emission application: experimental and theoretical contributions to sensitivity optimization
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7999056/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33799399
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21062042
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