Traveling wave excitation in a flexural vibration ring by using a torsional-flexural composite transducer

This paper presents a new mechanism for traveling wave excitation of the flexural vibration in a ring. A torsional-flexural composite transducer was used to excite two degenerate flexural vibration modes spatially and temporally orthogonal to each other in the ring. The proto-type, composed of a 32-mm diameter composite transducer attached along the outer edge of an 180-mm diameter aluminum annular ring, was designed, constructed, and tested. The ring was designed via finite element analysis to operate using a (0.8) transverse flexural traveling wave, and the motion was confirmed experimentally.