User manual for ATILA, a finite-element code for modeling piezoelectric transducers

Abstract

This manual for the user of the finite-element code ATILA provides instruction for entering information and running the code on a VAX computer. The manual does not include the code. The finite element code ATILA has been specifically developed to aid the design of piezoelectric devices, mainly for sonar applications. Thus, it is able to perform the model analyses of both axisymmetrical and fully three-dimensional piezoelectric transducers. It can also provide their harmonic response under radiating conditions: nearfield and farfield pressure, transmitting voltage response, directivity pattern, electrical impedance, as well as displacement field, nodal plane positions, stress field and various stress criteria...Its accuracy and its ability to describe the physical behavior of various transducers (Tonpilz transducers, double headmass symmetrical length expanders, free flooded rings, flextensional transducers, bender bars, cylindrical and trilaminar hydrophones...) have been checked by modelling more than twenty different structures and comparing numerical and experimental results