Measurement of acoustic dispersion using both transmitted and reflected pulses

Traditional broadband transmission method for measuring acoustic dispersion requires the measurements of the sound speed in water, the thickness of the specimen, and the phase spectra of two transmitted ultrasound pulses. When the sound speed in the specimen is significantly different from that in water, the overall uncertainty of the dispersion measurement is generally dominated by the uncertainty of the thickness measurement. In this paper, a new water immersion method for measuring dispersion is proposed which eliminates the need for thickness measurement and the associated uncertainty. In addition to recording the two transmitted pulses, the new method requires recording two reflected pulses, one from the front surface and one from the back surface of the specimen. The phase velocity as well as the thickness of the specimen can be determined from the phase spectra of the four pulses. Theoretical analysis and experimental results from three specimens demonstrate the advantages of this new method.     

Three-dimensional passive acoustic tracking of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in ray-refracting environments

A wide-aperture towed passive acoustic array is used to obtain ranges and depths of acoustically active sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico in June 2004, by extending a technique previously reported [Thode, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 245-253 (2004)] to explicitly account for ray-refraction effects arising from a depth-dependent sound speed profile. Under this expanded approach, three quantities are measured from an impulsive sound: the time difference between direct-path arrivals on a forward and rear subarray, the time difference between the direct and surface-reflected paths on the rear subarray, and the acoustic bearing measured on the rear subarray. These quantities, combined with independent measurements of hydrophone depths and cable inclination, are converted into range-depth position fixes by implementing an efficient numerical procedure that uses a ray-tracing code to account for ray-refraction effects caused by depth-dependent sound speed profiles. Analytic expressions that assume a constant waterborne sound speed are also derived. Foraging depths of various sperm whales over 10 days in June, 2004 are estimated using the numerical technique.     

Precision measurement of the speed of sound and thermodynamic properties of gases

Conclusions  The main significance of this paper is to evidence that the speedu of an acoustic wave propagating through a fluid provides nearly exhaustive information about its thermodynamic state. In recent years a substantial improvement of the experimental techniques and the associated theoretical models have made it possible to measureu with outstanding precision and accuracy (some parts in 10⁶). Thus, even if the thermodynamic quantities of interest are determined indirectly from the acoustic data, their ultimate accuracy favourably compares with that characteristic of traditional non-acoustic techniques. Among the wide variety of applications of speed-of-sound measurements, the result of major scientific relevance is the re-determination of the universal gas constantR. The revision of thermodynamic temperature scales and determinations of densities and heat capacities for pure gases and mixtures with accuracy of 0.1% also represent important results. The speed of sound is experimentally determined measuring the resonance frequencies of cavities (resonators) of spherical or cylindrical geometry, the choice depending on the order of accuracy demanded and the particular application of interest. Future improvements of the technique would require either an improved method for the determination of the resonator dimensions as a function of temperature, or different methods for excitation and detection of sound. These should have such design characteristics to extend the accessible range of experimental temperatures and pressures while maintaining or improving the signal-to-noise ratio. Substitution of conventional electro-acoustic transducers with non-contact optical techniques is under study and looks as a promising alternative.     

On the metrology of the speed of sound in liquids

Decentralization of the standards base in measuring the speed of sound in liquids by expressing the speed of sound in fractions of the speed of light in vacuum is considered. A method to take into account the diffraction effects by measuring the speed of sound in the case of a constant acoustic wavelength and binding the absolute speed of sound values to the calculated thermodynamic values obtained by the nonacoustical method when the adiabatic compressibility is equal to the isothermal one is proposed. Errors of the reproducibility of the unit of the speed of sound in water using the proposed method are estimated.     

利用自发布里渊散射测量液体声速

为了克服共振干涉法在液体的热力学声速和高频声速测量方面精度不高的问题, 本文建立了一种基于自发布里渊散射原理的测定液体声速的实验装置. 利用法布里-珀罗干涉仪对散射光进行扫描滤波, 数据采集卡结合光子计数器对散射光进行探测, 设计了一种散射光信息采集分析方法. 该实验方法有效的解决了传统布里渊散射方法中信号失真的问题, 显著地提升了液体声速测量精度. 对308.6–906.2 MHz内298.15 K饱和液相CCl₄声速进行了测量, 测量结果与文献值具有较好一致性. 利用法布里-珀罗干涉仪周期性扫描的滤波原理, 通过在测量得到的布里渊频移上加减整数倍个自由波谱区, 得到了更大频率的波谱信息, 进而设计一种测定介质高频声速的方法. 对CCl₄在5406.1–5521.0 MHz频段内的声速进行了测量. 实验结果显示, CCl₄的热力学声速随频率无明显变化, 而高频声速随频率的增大呈增大趋势且远大于热力学声速, 证实CCl₄具有色散现象.     

Regularization for improving the deconvolution in real-time near-field acoustic holography

Near-field acoustic holography is a measuring process for locating and characterizing stationary sound sources from measurements made by a microphone array in the near-field of the acoustic source plane. A technique called real-time near-field acoustic holography (RT-NAH) has been introduced to extend this method in the case of nonstationary sources. This technique is based on a formulation which describes the propagation of time-dependent sound pressure signals on a forward plane using a convolution product with an impulse response in the time-wavenumber domain. Thus the backward propagation of the pressure field is obtained by deconvolution. Taking the evanescent waves into account in RT-NAH improves the spatial resolution of the solution but makes the deconvolution problem "ill-posed" and often yields inappropriate solutions. The purpose of this paper is to focus on solving this deconvolution problem. Two deconvolution methods are compared: one uses a singular value decomposition and a standard Tikhonov regularization and the other one is based on optimum Wiener filtering. A simulation involving monopoles driven by nonstationary signals demonstrates, by means of objective indicators, the accuracy of the time-dependent reconstructed sound field. The results highlight the advantage of using regularization and particularly in the presence of measurement noise.     

Tracking of time-evolving sound speed profiles with an auto-regressive state-space model

An approach for time-evolving sound speed profiles tracking in shallow water is discussed.The inversion of time-evolving sound speed profiles is modeled as a state-space estimation problem,which includes a state equation for predicting the time-evolving sound speed profile and a measurement equation for incorporating local acoustic measurements.In the paper,auto-regression(AR) method is introduced to obtain a high-order AR evolution model of the sound speed field time variations,and the ensemble Kalman filter is utilized to track the sound speed field.To validate the approach,the accuracy in sound speed estimation is analyzed via a numerical implementation using the ASIAEX experimental environment and the sound velocity measurement data.Compared with traditional approaches based on the state evolution represented as a random walk,simulation results show the proposed AR method can effectively reduce the tracking errors of sound speed,and still keep good tracking performance at low signal-to-noise ratios.     

自回归状态空间模型下时变声速剖面跟踪方法

讨论了一种适用于浅海的时变声速剖面跟踪方法。该方法将时变水体声速剖面的反演问题建模为由描述声速剖面时变特性的状态方程与包含声压场局部测量信息的测量方程组成的状态-空间模型,提出利用自回归分析拟合方法将声速场扰动建模为高阶自回归演化模型,并通过集合卡尔曼滤波序贯地估计时间演化的海洋声速场。利用2001年亚洲海实验环境与声速测量数据,仿真分析了基于高阶自回归演化模型的时变声速剖面集合卡尔曼滤波估计方法。结果表明,相比于利用传统随机游走状态演化模型的估计方法,该改进方法可有效降低声速的跟踪误差,并且在较低信噪比条件下仍具有较好的跟踪性能。      

Computation of the sound field of a jet from characteristic turbulence parameters measured by crossed beam techniques

The sound field radiating from a jet is strongly dependent upon the turbulence in the jet. To describe the sound sources in a hot jet, a method has been developed, based upon the measurement of infra-red radiation of the jet, and a hybrid processing of the measured signal, which enables the computation of characteristic properties of the turbulence at various points inside the jet (convection speed, integral length scale, life time and intensity of turbulence).From these quantities the acoustic far field can be mapped, as a function of the polar distribution of the spectrum, the turbulence intensity and the total sound pressure field.     

基于四水听器的充水弹性管声速测量方法*

实验室中水声材料声学参数的测量主要在水声声管中进行。管内平面波声速是正确测量这些参数的基础。该文提出一种基于四水听器结合不同边界的测量充水弹性管中声速的新方法。该方法利用4个固定位置处的水听器,采用最小二乘的方法,使得两组水听器分别得到的声管末端入射波声压差值的平方最小的声速即为管内平面波声速。该方法利用单频信号,在每一频率点均可测得声速,可以在任一种声管末端边界下进行测量,同时无需知道各水听器到边界的精确距离,在文中的3种边界下声速测量结果具有很好的一致性,实验操作简单、误差很小。该方法的仿真结果与管内声速的理论值吻合得很好,同时实验测量结果与仿真值之间的误差很小,证明了方法的准确性以及鲁棒性,为声管声速测量提供一个很好的思路。     

浅海环境下数据同化声层析方法研究

讨论了适用于浅海的基于声速局部测量模型、声传播模型及声压场局部测量模型的声学数据同化方法,并给出了具体的执行算法。该算法根据最优化准则把局部声速和声压场的先验测量信息,以及声传播模型进行了有效地融合,提高了海洋环境参数估计的精度,为浅海声层析提供了新思路。同时,利用实验浅海声速测量数据,通过经验正交函数对实际海洋声速剖面进行了估计,并分析了各类噪声对水体声速场及海底声学参数估计精度的影响,验证了该执行算法的有效性。      

超声吸收体物理参数对红外热成像测量高强度聚焦超声声场的影响

超声吸收体的物理参数对利用水听器和红外热成像技术的高强度聚焦超声(High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound,HIFU)声场测量结果具有重要影响。为了探索超声吸收体的物理参数(密度、声速、衰减系数、热扩散系数、定压比热容)对测量结果的影响规律,本文根据层状模型计算出相同声源功率输出时不同物理参数对应的超声吸收体内部声场和热场,利用有限差分法计算出超声吸收体表面在辐照过程中的温度变化;利用基于水听器和红外热成像技术的聚焦声场测量方法测量出焦域内不同位置上声场特征值(轴线声强和-6 dB声束宽度),与通过理论计算得到的声源在纯水中声场特征值进行比较,分析了不同物理参数对测量结果的影响。超声吸收体的声、热学参数中除了声速外,其它物理参数的变化引起声场特征值的测量造成最大相对差异率小于15%。因为声波传播速度的改变会导致超声吸收体内部热场分布变化,使测量结果与理论计算值有较大偏差,其中-6 dB声束宽度和轴线声强最大相对差异率为95.37%和69.97%。因此在选择超声吸收体的声、热学参数时应重点关注声波在吸收体内声速的影响。超声吸收体的声学参数与水的声学参数相近时,可以在焦域内获得较好的测量结果。      

Sound field of thermoacoustic tomography based on a modified finite-difference time-domain method

A modified finite-difference time-domain （FDTD） method is proposed for the sound field simulation of the thermoacoustic tomography （TAT） in the acoustic speed inhomogeneous medium. First, the basic equations of the TAT are discretized to difference ones by the FDTD. Then the electromagnetic pulse, the excitation source of the TAT, is modified twice to eliminate the error introduced by high frequency electromagnetic waves. Computer simulations are carried out to validate this method. It is shown that the FDTD method has a better accuracy than the commonly used time-of-flight （TOF） method in the TAT with the inhomogeneous acoustic speed. The error of the FDTD is ten times smaller than that of the TOF in the simulation for the acoustic speed difference larger than 50%. So this FDTD method is an efficient one for the sound field simulation of the TAT and can provide the theoretical basis for the study of reconstruction algorithms of the TAT in the acoustic heterogeneous medium.     

浅海复杂环境下等效声速剖面的构建方法*

针对浅海复杂环境声速剖面水平变化情况下的声传播损失预报及目标定位问题,提出了一种基于遗传算法的等效声速剖面重构算法。首先,将声速剖面进行时间和空间上的分解,从而将声速剖面抽象为对声速剖面前三阶正交函数系数的反演;其次,利用遗传算法,以先验声速剖面集为基础,进行参数反演。仿真结果表明,在浅海复杂条件下,传播损失预报受声速剖面及海洋参数的影响,不能直接运用接收或发射位置处的声速剖面进行传播损失预报,否则会对预报结果造成误差。通过构建具有声传播累积效应的等效声速剖面可以提高匹配场定位精度,完成目标定位,且在构建等效声速剖面时,接收位置处即本地声速剖面所占权重较大。     

Detection of Internal Defects in Concrete and Evaluation of a Healthy Part of Concrete by Noncontact Acoustic Inspection Using Normalized Spectral Entropy and Normalized SSE

Non-destructive testing, with non-contact from a remote location, to detect and visualize internal defects in composite materials such as a concrete is desired. Therefore, a noncontact acoustic inspection method has been studied. In this method, the measurement surface is forced to vibrate by powerful aerial sound waves from a remote sound source, and the vibration state is measured by a laser Doppler vibrometer. The distribution of acoustic feature quantities (spectral entropy and vibrational energy ratio) is analyzed to statistically identify and evaluate healthy parts of concrete. If healthy parts in the measuring plane can be identified, the other part is considered to be internal defects or an abnormal measurement point. As a result, internal defects are detected. Spectral entropy (SE) was used to distinguish between defective parts and healthy parts. Furthermore, in order to distinguish between the resonance of a laser head and the resonance of the defective part of the concrete, spatial spectral entropy (SSE) was also used. SSE is an extension of the concept of SE to a two-dimensional measuring space. That is, based on the concept of SE, SSE is calculated, at each frequency, for spatial distribution of vibration velocity spectrum in the measuring plane. However, these two entropy values were used in unnormalized expressions. Therefore, although relative evaluation within the same measurement surface was possible, there was the issue that changes in the entropy value could not be evaluated in a unified manner in measurements under different conditions and environments. Therefore, this study verified whether it is possible to perform a unified evaluation for different defective parts of concrete specimen by using normalized SE and normalized SSE. From the experimental results using cavity defects and peeling defects, the detection and visualization of internal defects in concrete can be effectively carried out by the following two analysis methods. The first is using both the normalized SE and the evaluation of a healthy part of concrete. The second is the normalized SSE analysis that detects resonance frequency band of internal defects.     

基于子空间投影的声辐射多频分析算法

针对边界元法在声辐射多频分析中的困难,提出了一种基于子空间投影的快速插值算法。该方法将所求解的声学量视为一个线性系统的传递函数,然后采用Krylov投影降阶方法的无矩阵形式对原系统进行模型降阶,并通过降阶系统的传递函数来实现对所求声学量的频率插值计算。文中分别采用等距频率插值和自适应插值方案,计算了三种模型算例的辐射声压和声功率。数值结果表明,本算法可以在保证一定计算精度的前提下,显著地提高声辐射多频分析的计算速度。      

基于时域多普勒修正的运动声全息识别方法

由于运动声源测量信号中多普勒效应的存在,一般声全息方法无法直接使用,而阵列信号波束成形处理方法无法进行定量分析.本方法建立了基于测量面、辐射面和全息面的运动学几何关系,提出了声源与测量信号之间的非线性时间映射方法,基于运动声源的声源特征函数,构造了消除多普勒效应的全息面时域声压分布.全息重建得到运动声源表面有效声压分布,实现了对主要声源处声压幅值的定量估计.实际运动声源的测量实验结果证明了该方法的有效性.     

Measurement of acoustic power in studying cavitation processes

A comparative calorimetric method for measuring the acoustic power generated by a sound source under cavitation conditions and the power absorbed by a liquid with bubbles is developed. The conditions under which the whole of the generated power is absorbed by the liquid with bubbles are determined experimentally. An instrument for power calibration of sound sources operating under cavitation conditions is designed. The instrument is found to provide a high measurement accuracy (3% or better). The requirements on the dimensions of the vessel and on the volume of the liquid in which the sound source operates are formulated to make the power generated under cavitation conditions independent of these parameters. For the first time, it is shown experimentally (by the example of the reaction of nitric oxide formation under the action of sound) that, if these conditions are satisfied and the sound intensity exceeds the threshold intensity, the rate of a number of sonochemical reactions is proportional to the sound intensity in the range from 1.7 to at least 47 W/cm². It is shown that the dependence of the rate of cavitation processes on the sound intensity with a maximum at 8.6 W/cm² and a sharp decrease in the rate with a further intensity increase is determined by the fact that the measured quantity was the electric power at the transducer rather than the acoustic one.     

A mixed method for measuring low-frequency acoustic properties of macromolecular materials

A mixed method for measuring low-frequency acoustic properties of macromolecular materials is presented. The dynamic mechanical parameters of materials are first measured by using Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Apparatus(DMTA) at low frequencies, usually less than 100 Hz; then based on the Principles of Time-Temperature Superposition (TTS), these parameters are extended to the frequency range that acousticians are concerned about, usually from hundreds to thousands of hertz; finally the extended dynamic mechanical parameters are transformed into acoustic parameters with the help of acoustic measurement and inverse analysis. To test the feasibility and accuracy, we measure a kind of rubber sample in DMTA and acquire the basic acoustic parameters of the sample by using this method. While applying the basic parameters to calculating characteristics of the sample in acoustic pipe, a reasonable agreement of sound absorption coefficients is obtained between the calculations and measurements in the acoustic pipe.     

Sound velocity determination in gel-based emulsions

Sound velocity is a main parameter in non destructive characterization, closely related to the elastic properties and to the microstructure of heterogeneous materials.The accurate determination of the sound velocity using pulse-echo technique relies on the ability to reduce pulse distortion and to measure specimen dimensions with a high precision. In the field of bio-mimetic materials and biological tissues, the nature of the specimen makes this last requirement highly difficult or inappropriate.The present work, using a through-transmission configuration, allows, in a stress free environment, to access the sound velocity in soft, low acoustic contrast materials without requiring the specimen dimensions. The specimen sound velocity is obtained from the echo time-of-flights through a Z-scan process providing the absolute medium sound velocity as reference.The technique uses an excitation burst at a frequency below the transducer resonance to ensure a significantly reduction in pulse distortions and improve signal-to-noise ratio. The accurate determination of the echo time-of-flight relies on a highly efficient cross-correlation/Hilbert transform signal processing.The method has been applied to gel-based emulsions of different microstructures considered as biomimetic phantoms, as well as to their constituents: pure gelatin and vegetable oil.