Ultrasonic Boosters

The ultrasonic booster is typically a tuned half wave component shaped so that it increases or decreases amplitude passed between the converter (transducer) and sonotrode (horn). The amount of increase or decrease in amplitude is referred to as gain.

Amplitude is the peak-to-peak distance traveled by any particular point on a vibrating item in one sound wave cycle. When referring to ultrasonic plastic welders, amplitude usually refers to a point at the working face or output surface of a tooling component.

A booster has differing mass on the input and output ends, and this difference in mass is controlled such that each booster has a particular gain ratio. The common parlance is to state the gain of a booster that increases amplitude as ultrasound passes through it with a number greater than one, and that of a booster that reduces amplitude with a number less than one.

A booster having no effect on amplitude is referred to as having gain of 1.0. A booster that doubles amplitude has a gain of 2.0, while one that cuts amplitude in half has a gain of 0.5.

Boosters of the type offered below have a fixed length specification from input surface to mounting ring. The distance from mounting ring to output surface varies by the stiffness of the particular material that particular booster is made from– stiffer lots of material will yield boosters that are longer than softer material yields. This is because boosters are tuned to run at a particular frequency, not made to a particular length dimension.

Boosters that are properly designed will produce negligible heat while running, indicating that energy losses in transmission and efficiency losses at the mounting ring are very low. The boosters offered below are comparable to or better than most OEM boosters in this regard.