TY - CONF A1 - Boehm, Rainer A1 - Heckel, Thomas ED - Bond, Leonard T1 - Simulation of Sparse Matrix Array Designs T2 - 44TH ANNUAL REVIEW OF PROGRESS IN QUANTITATIVE NONDESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION N2 - Matrix phased array probes are becoming more prominently used in industrial applications. The main drawbacks, using probes incorporating a very large number of transducer elements, are needed for an appropriate cabling and an ultrasonic device offering many parallel channels. Matrix arrays designed for extended functionality feature at least 64 or more elements. Typical arrangements are square matrices, e.g., 8 by 8 or 11 by 11 or rectangular matrixes, e.g., 8 by 16 or 10 by 12 to fit a 128-channel phased array system. In some phased array systems, the number of simultaneous active elements is limited to a certain number, e.g., 32 or 64. Those setups do not allow running the probe with all elements active, which may cause a significant change in the directivity pattern of the resulting sound beam. When only a subset of elements can be used during a single acquisition, different strategies may be applied to collect enough data for rebuilding the missing information from the echo signal. Omission of certain elements may be one approach, overlay of subsequent shots with different active areas may be another one. This paper presents the influence of a decreased number of active elements on the sound field and their distribution on the array. Solutions using subsets with different element activity patterns on matrix arrays and their advantages and disadvantages concerning the sound field are evaluated using semi-analytical simulation tools. Sound field criteria are discussed, which are significant for non-destructive testing results and for the system setup. T2 - QNDE 2017 CY - Utah, USA DA - 16.07.2017 KW - Imaging KW - Phased Array KW - Sparse Array KW - Matrix Array PY - 2018 DO - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5031560 SP - 1949 EP - 1958 PB - AiP CY - Melville, NY 11747 - 4300, USA AN - OPUS4-45175 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -