Today’s ultrasonic transducers utilize either the piezoelectric or magnetostrictive effect of materials to produce ultrasonic waves in liquids. This blog will concentrate on the magnetostrictive ultrasonic transducer. Magnetostrictive Transducers – Magnetostrictive ultrasonic transducers utilize the principle of magnetostriction exhibited by “ferromagnetic” materials which include iron, nickel and cobalt as well as many alloys of these …
I have been spending a lot of time on the blog lately talking about the effects of sound waves. Today’s blog starts a series devoted to the way ultrasound is created and how it can be customized to provide the best ultrasonic cleaning results. The heart of an ultrasonic cleaning system is a device called …
In the blog Cavitation 101, cavitation in liquids was described as the backbone of ultrasonic cleaning. Cavitation by itself, however, is not the end of the story. Although cavitation is the backbone, the real work is accomplished by the implosion of cavitation bubbles. Cavitation bubbles are, in essence, pockets of vacuum or vapor of the surrounding …
Cavitation of liquid due to high amplitude ultrasonic vibration within the liquid is the backbone of ultrasonic cleaning. Liquids have the unique ability to cavitate. In order to cavitate, a material must exhibit three properties – It must be relatively inextensible and uncompressible. It can’t be able to stretch or expand or be compressed to significantly change …
Two of the major variables in the production of mechanical vibration are frequency and amplitude. The consequences of frequency variation were discussed in a preceding blog. Today’s blog concentrates on amplitude and the power implications of varying either or both frequency and amplitude. As discussed in the blog titled Ultrasonics-Sound-Amplitude, the amplitude of a vibration …
In the world of everyday sound, things happen in a fairly predictable way. Sound vibrations are created, transmitted and received in textbook fashion. As vibrational frequencies and or amplitudes are increased, however, that picture changes quite dramatically. In earlier blogs, we learned that as the frequency of sound (vibrational energy) is increased, the number of cycles …
Ultrasonics is generally described as the technology of sound above the range of human hearing. The use of the term “sound,” however, is questionable since “sound” would imply something we (humans) can hear. It all comes down to the question asking, “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear …
Previous blogs have introduced the phenomenon of resonance. In fact, most objects can resonate at more than one frequency and in multiple modes of vibration. This blog will concentrate on resonance at multiples of the the fundamental frequency. These are “harmonics” of the fundamental frequency. A good model to demonstrate the principle of resonance at multiples …
A previous blog explored some potentially useful properties of resonance. The fact that resonance has the power to convert sound wave pressure into mechanical motion can be very useful. On the other hand, however, the fact that it takes so little effort delivered at the proper frequency to excite resonance also has its “down” side. …
Resonance, as discussed in a previous blog, can be either or both beneficial and/or detremental. This blog will explore the beneficial qualities of resonance. Consider the model of a child’s swing discussed in the preceding blog. We all know that by “pushing” or “pumping” at the right time can easily make the swing go higher and …
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