Design and Development of a Novel Ultrasonic Field Wetting Angle Measuring Instrument for Researching the Wetting of the Liquid–Solid Interface

Abstract

A key technical problem in the preparation of Al-Ti-C grain refiner and other composite materials is the poor wetting of the Al-C interface, which greatly restricts the development of the preparation technology of related composite materials. In view of this scientific challenge, a novel ultrasonic field wetting angle measuring instrument has been designed to research the wetting behavior of the liquid–solid interface and ensure that preparation conditions are optimized. The dimensional parameters of the ultrasonic transducer and the horn in the novel ultrasonic wetting angle measuring instrument have been designed by theoretical calculation, and the modal analysis was performed for the ultrasonic horn using the functions of displacement and time. Modal analysis was utilized to optimize the dimension of the ultrasonic horn, and the natural frequency of the longitudinal vibration of the horn was reduced from 22,130 Hz to 22,013 Hz, resulting in an error rate between the actual value (22,013 Hz) and the design value (20 kHz) of less than 1%. In addition, the influence of different transition arc radiuses on the maximum stress of the optimized ultrasonic horn was analyzed.