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AssigneeMasushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
InventorsMasaaki Suzuki, Takashi Hashida, Masahiko Hashimoto
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It is an object of the present invention to provide an ultrasonic transducer, which is so configured as to reduce the variations in characteristics, thereby to enable the stabilization of the precision, as well as to enable the improvement of the durability, and the like, a method for manufacturing the ultrasonic transducer, and an ultrasonic flowmeter. In order to attain this object, in accordance with the present invention, the ultrasonic transducer is so configured as to include a piezoelectric element and an acoustic matching layer, wherein the acoustic matching layer is made of a dry gel of an inorganic oxide or an organic polymer, and a solid skeletal part of the dry gel has been rendered hydrophobic. With this configuration, it is possible to obtain the ultrasonic transducer having an acoustic matching layer 3 which is very lightweight and has a small acoustic impedance due to the solid skeletal part of the dry gel which has been rendered hydrophobic. Further, it is also possible to obtain the ultrasonic transducer which shows a narrow range of characteristic variations, and is stable due to the high homogeneity of the dry gel.
A method for manufacturing an ultrasonic transducer comprising an acoustic matching layer made of a dry gel of an inorganic oxide or an organic polymer, the solid skeletal part of the dry gel having been rendered hydrophobic, and a piezoelectric element, the method comprising a step of brazing the dry gel to the piezoelectric element or a gas shielding case on the inner side of which the piezoelectric element is mounted.
A method for manufacturing an ultrasonic transducer comprising an acoustic matching layer made of a dry gel of an inorganic oxide or an organic polymer, the solid skeletal part of the dry gel having been rendered hydrophobic, and a piezoelectric element, the method including a step of forming the acoustic matching layer, the step of forming the acoustic matching layer comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.