This page describes features that have been added or improved from previous versions of CARD. This page also describes features of the latest beta (preproduction) version. If you need any of these features, then you should consider upgrading.

CARD receives continuous upgrades. You should check here periodically for the latest information.

Table of Contents

Version 9.00 (Current Version)

CARD 9.00 is the current official version. It is a major upgrade to version 8.26c. (For a general description of the CARD's capabilities, click here.)

The improvements fall into four major categories: 1) easier to use, 2) greater functionality, 3) improved accuracy, and 4) other changes.

Easier to use

The user interface now acts more like Windows, while retaining the flexibility of operating under either DOS or Windows. These interface changes make CARD considerably easier to use.

1. Bar menu. A bar menu is positioned at the top of the screen. You can access any of the bar menu options by pressing the Alt key plus the associated hot key. For example, to access the File option, press Alt+F. The bar menu may be accessed up to five layers deep. (The depth of the bar menu is indicated at the upper right corner of the screen.)
     
2. Hot keys. Some submenus or options can be called directly by pressing an option hot key. These hot keys are shown in [ ] following menu option description. For example, to save a file from within any menu, press S.
     
3. Input checklist. Rather than using multiple sequential input menus, CARD now has a main menu checklist. This allows you to access only those menus that are relevant to your particular resonator design. If you are unsure of which menus are required, you should use the "Step through Checklist" options.
     
4. On-line help. The on-line help has been significantly improved and expanded. The help text now pops up in a full-screen window, which can be scrolled by using a mouse on the scroll bar or with any of the cursor keys.
   
   The on-line help now includes all of the CARD manual except the examples and the figures. In many cases, the on-line help is more current and extensive than the manual. There are 1000+ help topics, 3800+ cross-references, and 250+ pages. The help now contains all of the previous *.err files.
   
   The help text is extensively cross-referenced. For a particular help window, just click the left mouse button on any of the highlighted topics that appear.
   
   For CARD's menus that display results below the input section (e.g., many of the Equation's menus), you can now use Insert key to make the cursor jump to the results section. You can then get information about each result by pressing Enter or F1.
   
   For help that corresponds to a menu option, the path to the corresponding menu is shown at the end of the help information. For example, the path to the file menu's Save File option would be shown as \Files\Save file\.
   
   If desired, CARD's help can be directly accessed by running CARDhelp.exe, for which CARD itself does not need to be running. This can be useful if you are running under Windows and want to run CARD in one window and CARDhelp in another.
     
5. Scrolling lists. Files, directories, and drives can now be selected from scrolling lists. When a search window is open, you can type in a search string and the cursor will jump to the closest match.
     
6. Paged selection. You can now Page-up or Page-down through the materials and equipment lists.
     
7. Material changes. After you have entered the resonator shape in the spreadsheet, you can easily change the material that is assigned to a particular surface. For the exterior resonator shape (F2 key) and any surface other than surface 0, pressing M (a hot key) will display the current material for that surface. Then Page-up or Page-down to the desired material and press Esc to changed to the displayed material. (Note: for surface 0, pressing M displays a list of all available materials where you can adjust the material properties, if desired.)
     
8. Menu indicators. For some menu options, pressing the Ctrl+Enter keys together has a special effect. For example, in the material properties menu, pressing Ctrl+Enter will automatically calculate the particular material property. To identify these special menu options, a "=" precedes the option description. The on-line help for the particular menu option describes the special effect.
     
9. Setup options. Additional setup options have been added. The most important are:
   
   Checklist menu options
   Override numeric limits
   Default tuning mode
   
   See the online help for more information.
   
10. Flip resonator. You can use the "|" key to flip the resonator end-for-end when you are in the spreadsheet. This is useful for resonators with pointed ends, for which CARD may have difficulty converging. CAUTION: this is still experimental.

Greater functionality

1. Equations. An Equation section has been added. This allows you to access various theoretical and empirical equations (and associated graphs) which are useful in designing ultrasonic resonators. These include equations for theoretical resonator shapes (exponential, catenoidal, conical, radial, flexural, etc.), the effect of temperature on resonator performance, amplitude uniformity of unslotted cylindrical resonators, press fits, thread dimensions and stresses, material properties, etc. A tree diagram is shown below.

         EQUATIONS
         ¦
         ¦-- INFORMATION
         ¦
         ¦-- AXIAL RESONANCE
         ¦    ¦
         ¦    ¦- Cylindrical Horns
         ¦    ¦   ¦-- Unshaped (*)
         ¦    ¦   ¦-- Conical (*)
         ¦    ¦   ¦-- Exponential (*)
         ¦    ¦   ¦-- Catenoidal (*)
         ¦    ¦   --- Spool (*)
         ¦    ¦
         ¦    -- Tip force (*)
         ¦
         ¦-- RADIAL RESONANCE
         ¦    ¦
         ¦    ¦-- Radial disk resonance (*)
         ¦    --- Radial ring resonance
         ¦
         ¦-- FLEXURE RESONANCE
         ¦    ¦
         ¦    ¦-- Rod --- (typical) --- Clamped-fixed plate (*)
         ¦    ¦-- Beam                       ¦- Clamped-free plate (*)
         ¦    ¦-- Plate                        -- Infinite plate (*)
         ¦    --- Disk
         ¦
         ¦-- TORSIONAL RESONANCE
         ¦
         ¦-- MATERIAL PROPERTIES
         ¦    ¦
         ¦    ¦-- Temperature effects (*)
         ¦    ¦-- Thin-wire parameters
         ¦    --- Q
         ¦
         --- OTHER
              ¦
              ¦-- Bolt dimensions
              ¦-- Bolt calculations
              ¦-- Wrench flat equivalent diameter
              ¦-- Spanner hole equivalent diameter
              ¦-- Press-fit (*)
              ¦-- Von Mises stress
              ¦-- Piezo-ceramic calculations
                  ¦-- Static performance
                  --- Dynamic performance

         (*) indicates that calculations can be graphed for the specified item.
     

2. Temperature dependent wave speed. The thin-wire wave speed can now be temperature dependent. See the "Wave speed coefficients" option in the material properties menu. The actual resonator temperatures are set in the general requirements menu.
   
   Note that the current implementation assumes a linear temperature distribution from the front to the back of the resonator, which will only be true for an unshaped resonator. See the on-line help for further discussion.
     
3. Square block horn. A square block horn has been added to the available horn types. For this horn, all dimensions (bevels, banding, etc.) are completely symmetric on both the thickness and width.
     
4. Cylindrical cross-slotted horn. A cylindrical cross-slotted horn has been added to the available horn types. This is a cylindrical horn where the slots intersect at 90°, rather than intersecting radially at the center of the horn. This horn does not have a face cavity or interior.
     
5. More slots. For bar and block horns, the maximum number of slots has been increased from four to six.
     
6. Hollow studs. Studs can now have a through hole that overrides any overlapping resonator material.
     
7. Additional results. After slicing, CARD now also calculates the strain energy, loss, overall Q (quality factor), and the resonator's weight.
     
8. More complex resonators. To allow for the design of more complex resonators, the maximum number of exterior and interior surfaces has been increased from 20 to 40. The number of surfaces that have been used in the current resonator is shown in the spreadsheet.
     
9. Improved output. When you output the text results, you can now output to either a printer or to a file (either formatted for subsequent printing or unformatted). The file output is useful if you don't have immediate access to an appropriate printer (e.g., if working from a laptop computer), or if you want to use the results in a word processing document (unformatted).
   
   For a formatted output file, you can send the file to the printer by typing "type filename.ext > lpt1".
   
   You can now print a list of all resonator materials from the Files menu.
   
10. Greater control. You now have greater control over the slicing process by specifying values for the calibration gain error, the auto-tune gain error, and the auto-tune stress angle increment. (\Checklist\Set tuning parameters\)
    
11. Improved graphics. To clarify the shapes of slender resonators, the surface numbers can be temporarily hidden. Also, autotune surfaces now have a distinctive dashed pattern.
    
    For printing, the graphics background color can be selected.
    
12. Graphics menu. The resonator's input or output amplitude can now be specified. All graphs that are available from the graphics menu are then scaled to this amplitude.
    
13. Loss and strain energy graphs. The graphics menus now display loss and strain energy graphs. These graphs are useful when designing a resonator for minimum loss or where the loss must be distributed over the length of the resonator.

Improved accuracy

CARD's accuracy has improved for the following conditions:

1. Block horns. In a comparison of 52 rectangular and square block horns, the average frequency predicted by CARD was within 0.03% of the corresponding frequencies predicted by finite element analysis (versus -1.4% for CARD 7.12c).
     
2. Resonators with a stud. When the resonator has a stud, CARD is now more accurate.
     
3. Full-wave resonators. CARD now gives correct results for full-wave resonators. (Previously, CARD's predicted frequency was too low.)

Other changes

1. In order to make the mouse work with CARD's help, the mouse has been disabled for CARD's menus.
     
2. Monochrome monitors are no longer directly supported.
     
3. CARD's file format is not compatible with 7.xx. No conversion utility is available or planned.
     
4. CARD's installation program CARDinst.bat has been renamed to Setup.bat to be consistent with Windows.
     
5. A laser printer is now the default printer.
     
6. English density units are now correct (i.e., not divided by the acceleration of gravity).
     
7. You now exit CARD from the Files menu. You can also press X to exit. You can no longer abort CARD by pressing Ctrl+C.
     
8. CARD should now work with Windows NT, although some potential problems remain.
     
9. The following menus will not be accessible in this version, but may be implemented in future versions:
   
   \Checklist\Resonator type\Transducer\
   \Option\Setup\Help messages\
   \Option\Setup\Mouse sensitivity\
   \Equation\Axial resonance\Bar horns\
   \Equation\Axial resonance\Block horns\
   \Equation\Material properties\Materials database\
   \Equation\Other\Stress concentration\
   \Equation\Other\Piezo-ceramic calculations\Dynamic performance\

 Version 8.5x (Beta)

CARD 8.5x is the most current version. It has not yet been officially released but is currently undergoing testing. This version is available under the same conditions as the official version. You should consider this version if you need any of the following added features. However, because it is still undergoing testing, it may have bugs that are not present in the official version.

1. 99 half-waves. The maximum number of half-waves for unslotted horns has been increased from three to  99. This is particularly useful for long medical probes. Note: most of the added half-waves must be prismatic (constant cross-sectional area), since CARD stores the prismatic data in a special compressed format. Since this is the usual condition, this imposes only a mild limitation for designing very long resonators.
     
2. Added equations. The following have been added to the Equations section:
   
   \Equation\Other\Linear estimate\ -- This option allows linear interpolation/extrapolation between two known data points in order to provide an estimate of acoustic parameters (node location, frequency change, etc.).
   
   \Equation\Other\Lissajou diagram\ -- Resonators sometimes have odd amplitude patterns (ovals, figure-8', arrowheads, etc.). These patterns occur when the resonator vibrates simultaneously at two or more frequencies. The Lissajou diagram option allows you to adjust frequency and amplitude parameters in order to duplicate these amplitude patterns. This can provide insight into the cause of these patterns.
   
   \Equation\Acoustic radiation\ -- This option predicts the power that can be delivered by a flat circular piston to an infinite fluid (i.e., no energy is reflected back to the piston). This may be used to estimate the power that will be delivered by a horn, excluding cavitation.
     
3. Wrench flat calculations. CARD now correctly calculates the area for wrench flats that have been machined into a sloping surface.

The file format for this version is currently compatible with version 9.00. However, this compatibility is not guaranteed for future releases.

Important Notes

1. For versions 9.xx, CARD's file format is not compatible earlier versions (6.xx and 7.xx). No conversion utility is available or planned.

    

Price and Delivery

Shipping and handling

Payment

1. All prices are US dollars.
     
2. Payment may be made by corporate check, personal check, purchase order, or any guaranteed negotiable instrument (cashiers check, money order, etc.). Purchase orders are subject to approval. Personal checks must clear before CARD is shipped.

Shipment -- two weeks (approximately) after receipt of payment.

Notes

1. CARD requires a diskette drive in order to access the copy protection diskette. If you intend to use CARD on a computer that does not have a diskette drive, then you will have to purchase a copy protection key that plugs into the computer's parallel printer port. Note that the copy protection key will not work under Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
     
2. The copy protection diskette or the copy protection key is your evidence of authorized use. If you have lost either of these, then you cannot upgrade directly. Instead, you must purchase a full version.