Materials and Device Modeling to Reduce Cost and Time to Exploit Relaxor Piezoelectric Single Crystals in Navy SONAR Transducers Navy SBIR FY2008.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2008.1 Topic No.: N08-061 Topic Title: Materials and Device Modeling to Reduce Cost and Time to Exploit Relaxor Piezoelectric Single Crystals in Navy SONAR Transducers Proposal No.: N081-061-0577 Firm: Materials Systems Inc. 543 Great Road Littleton, Massachusetts 01460 Contact: Barry Doust Phone: (978) 486-0404 Web Site: www.matsysinc.com Abstract: The discovery in 1996 of a group of relaxor-based ferroelectric single crystals with electromechanical properties superior to those of traditional PZT has generated considerable interest in for defense sonar. Recently, it has become evident that greater experience and improvements in materials processing has begun to yield a greater supply of reliable and consistent materials appropriate for designing and building practical devices. However, there still remains a significant gap in experience applying these materials to practical devices. Closing this gap requires significant expansion of the knowledgebase of available properties including the reliability, behavior over time and range of operating conditions. Materials Systems Inc. has excellent capabilities and more experience in the application of novel transducer materials to Navy sonar systems than any other small company. In the proposed program, MSI will work closely with Weidlinger Associates, Inc. and material vendors to begin addressing piezoelectric single crystal application issues through a series of characterization, design and validation studies. This will include detailed characterization of selected materials for input into Finite Element Analysis models, validation of these properties with measurements of material samples and design-build-test of a practical Navy device. Benefits: A better understanding of the material properties of single crystal materials will enable sonar system designers to take advantage of the inherent performance benefits of these materials and allow rapid development of improved sonar systems. This will produce transducers with higher source level and broader bandwidth which translates to sonar systems with greater range and fidelity. Because they have relatively low frequency constants, single crystal transducers can be made more compact and lighter weight, which makes them ideal for small vehicle applications such as UUVs where space and weight are difficult limitations. Return