Reduction of the error of hydrophone calibration with respect to the field in a hydroacoustic tank by the reciprocity method

A hydrophone calibration procedure that considerably reduces the error caused by the acoustic field distortions in a hydroacoustic tank is proposed. The procedure is based on the definition of the reduced electric transfer impedances of transducers (i.e., the electric transfer impedances reduced to the spherical wave propagation law) and consists in measuring the electric transfer impedances for different distances between hydroacoustic transducers. The sensitivity of the hydrophone under calibration is calculated from the far-field values of the reduced electric transfer impedances. The latter are determined using a mathematical model of the hydrophone in the form of a system that contains a point sensing element and a finite number of point sources of acoustic signals (point reflectors). A method of determining the number and coordinates of the point reflectors from the analysis of the acoustic “images” of the hydrophone’s reflecting surface is proposed. The measuring technique, the algorithms of mathematical processing, and the results of experimental studies are considered. A comparative analysis of the results of the hydrophone calibration with respect to the field by the reciprocity method is performed for the cases of using the conventional technique and the proposed method.