Finite element method aided power flow mapping of an ultrasonic vibration tool

The power flow mapping of a loaded ultrasonic tool is necessary for designing the fatigue life of such a tool. As the power flow vector is defined as a tensor product of the vibration velocity and the stress tensor matrix, the entire vibration distribution of the tool is required. However, the three-dimensional (3D) measurement of the entire vibration distribution of the ultrasonic tool is impossible. In this paper, a newly proposed method for calculation of the power flow vector, in which the forced vibration analysis based on finite element method (FEM) is employed together with the partial vibration data measured at the surface of the ultrasonic tool, was applied to two types of rectangular parallelepiped ultrasonic tools. Reasonable power flow maps of both types of tools were successfully obtained.