Development of an omni-directional shear-horizontal wave magnetostrictive patch transducer for plates

As an effective tool to inspect large plates, omni-directional guided wave transducers have become more widely used to form phased-array inspection systems. While omni-directional Lamb wave transducers have been successfully utilized in the systems, omni-directional Shear-Horizontal (SH) wave transducers have not been investigated. In this paper, we propose an omni-directional SH magnetostrictive patch transducer that consists of an annular magnetostrictive patch, a toroidal coil and a permanent magnet. After presenting the unique configuration of the proposed transducer and its working principle, the omni-directivity of the developed transducer is verified through simulations and experiments conducted in an aluminum plate. The frequency characteristics of the proposed transducer depending on the patch size are also investigated as the underlying reference data for future construction of an SH phased-array system.