Metasubstrate-based SH guided wave piezoelectric transducer for unidirectional beam deflection without time delay

Focusing the energy of a guided wave along a desired direction is of great significance in structural health monitoring (SHM), since it can improve the sensitivity to defects and reduce the complexity of signal interpretations. The phased array method is the most common approach for beam deflection, which requires a high uniformity of each element and the support of expensive and complex electronics. Moreover, the mirrored wave beam cannot be avoided for a linear array, resulting in the difficulty of distinguishing the defects at the symmetric positions. In this work, a metasubstrate-based piezoelectric transducer (MSBPT) is developed for unidirectional SH₀ wave (the fundamental shear horizontal wave) beam deflection under a single driving source. The proposed MSBPT is constituted by a metasubstrate and two columns of thickness-shear mode PZT wafers. The metasubstrate is designed to provide the required phase gradient for unidirectional beam deflection, so no extra time delay is needed during excitation and reception. An analytical model is proposed to guide the design of the transducer to obtain the desired wave beam. The beam deflection properties of the MSBPT are validated by finite element simulations and experiments. It is observed that the MSBPT can concentrate the energy of the generated SH₀ mode only in one desired direction with a small divergence angle. Moreover, the MSBPT can also serve as a sensor that only receives the SH₀ mode propagating from the deflection angle and filters out the wave energies from other incident angles. Due to the simple configuration, the proposed MSBPT will be helpful in the controllable generation and reception of SH₀ mode in SHM.