7.

3 The Piezo-electric Transducer 133

C
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I
Fig.7.12. Excitation of a piezo-electric
I
I
plate by an alternating voltage train
with damping coefficients 1.75 and

-r
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I 525, excitation frequency equals natu-
I
d ral frequency. a Alternating voltage
train, identical with oscillation pattern
of an inertialess plate; b transient oscil-
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I lation of actual plate for b = 1.75. c os-
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I cillations occurring in the actual plate,
e
I i.e. the sum of (a) and (b). (d) transient
oscillations for b = 525 . (e) oscillation
of plate, i.e. sum of (a) and (d)

and the elastic forces, the plate tends to resist any sudden changes and smothes
them out at the beginning and at the end of the oscillation by buildup and decay
processes. The actual oscillation of the plate is therefore composed of the motion of
an inertialess plate subjected to the influence of the voltage, which the plate follows
precisely, and the transient oscillations. In Fig. 7.12 the curves a and b should
therefore be added, so that the actual oscillation of the plate is obtained in c. Here
again a damping coefficient b = 1.75 was assumed, as in Fig. 7.8b. The transient os-
cillation is the free characteristic oscillation of the plate, and Fig. 7.12 b is therefore
identical with Fig.7.8b; the latter oscillation, however, as a build-up process,
should be taken to be negative because it opposes the electrical excitation. How-
ever, at the end of the pulse, it acts in the same sense, i.e. it tries to support the
electrical excitation.
With higher damping (Figs. 7.12d and e for b = 525) the effect of the transient
oscillation is less important and the actual oscillation already resembles the excit-
ing voltage much more closely. It should, however, not be overlooked that the am-
plitude decreases inversely with the damping coefficient; in the illustration this has
not been taken into account.
The build-up of the natural oscillation depends entirely on the impressed conditions, for
which a particularly simple and clear case has been chosen here, viz. appearance and disap-
pearance of the pulse voltage exactly at a maximum. The correlated build-up process always
develops in such a manner that it exactly cancels the motion of an intertialess plate at the be-
ginning.
The shorter the duration of the excitation and the lower the damping of the
plate the greater the proportion of transient oscillations in the pulse. In Fig. 7.13 a