Design and development of refined (3,1) drive low-frequency piezofilm hydrophones

摘要

A hydrophone design using polarized polyvinylidene fluoride film held taut and made to vibrate in the stretch direction by a modified structural assembly is described in this paper. In this refined design, the diaphragm which is the active face of the hydrophone is uniformly mounted on the enclosure using two rubber O-rings, thereby ensuring smooth transfer of energy from the diaphragm to the polymer film. An acceptable level of reproducibility is also achieved with this approach. A mathematical model for determining the resonance frequency of the (3,1) drive design is also proposed by considering it as an assembly of a circular plate loaded with a point mass at the center and having uniformly clamped contour. Experimental and theoretical results are in good agreement.