Effects of viscosity and chemical relaxation on acoustic pulse propagation in seawater

This paper considers acoustic pulse distortion in seawater due to effects of viscosity and chemical relaxation. The acoustic medium is modelled as a linear, time-invariant, space-invariant filter. The deformation of initially Gaussian-shaped pulses is estimated. The combined effects of the dissipative processes are that as a pulse propagates through the medium, the maximum amplitude is decreased, the pulse is stretched in time and a delayed tail is developed. Input pulses with high-frequency energy contents can undergo a considerable deformation due to these phenomena.