A mode-switchable guided elastic wave transducer

Piezoelectric fiber patches (PFP) are known as lightweight and structure conform transducers for guided elastic wave generation and detection. We propose a new PFP concept combining advantages of different previous designs which are one sided directivity, Lamb wave selectivity and shear horizontal wave excitability. In addition: with new design the user can switch between Lamb wave and shear horizontal wave excitation by simply changing the polarity in part of the transducer electrodes. After summarizing the known PFP variants, the new concept is introduced and proved by Laser Doppler vibrometer visualization of generated waves.