沉积层声学特性对浅海低频声场分布的影响

已有对浅海低频水声场的讨论多是关注声能量在水体中的分布特性,对水体下沉积层、基底中低频声传播的同步研究相对较少。本文基于波动方程,在柱坐标系下推导了一种浅海水体/海底统一波导下低频声能流的计算模型,在此基础上结合具体仿真算例与波动理论阐述了不同沉积层声学参数对声场能量分布的影响规律及机理。仿真结果表明,在沉积层纵波声速>水中声速>沉积层横波声速的前提下,沉积层中密度与纵波声速数值越大,声能量越趋于保留在水体中而不向海底泄漏,横波声速的影响正好相反;沉积层厚度增加到一定量后,基底对流体层中声传播的影响可近似忽略不计。      

一种低声速沉积层海底参数声学反演方法

软泥底环境下沉积层参数的声学反演是国际水声领域的一个研究热点.浅海中,当高声速基底和海水之间存在一层低声速(小于海水声速)的沉积层时,小掠射角情况下不同频率声传播损失会出现周期性增大现象.基于此现象,提出一种适用于低声速沉积层的海底参数声学反演方法.首先,推导给出小掠射角情况下传播损失周期增大的频率间隔与沉积层声速、厚度及近海底海水声速之间的解析表达式;其次,利用一次黄海实验中软泥底环境下的宽带声传播信号,提取了小掠射角下传播损失增大的频率周期;再次,把该解析表达式作为约束条件,结合Hamilton密度与声速的经验公式,采用匹配场处理反演给出沉积层的声速、密度、厚度及基底的声速、密度;然后,利用声传播损失数据反演得到泥底环境下不同频率的声衰减系数,通过拟合发现泥底声衰减系数随频率近似呈线性关系;最后,给出了双层海底模型和半无限大海底模型等效性的讨论.反演结果为低声速沉积层海底声传播规律研究与应用提供了海底声学参数.     

Effects of sediment acoustic characteristics on low-frequency acoustic field distribution in shallow water

Most of the published literatures on low-frequency underwater sound propagation are focused on the sound propagation features in the water column,while studies on sound propagation features in the sediment layer or the semi-infinite basement are rare.In this paper,based on the wave equation,a computational model for sound energy flux in the sediment layer and the basement as well as in the water column is proposed under a cylindrical coordinate system.On this basis,the effects of various sediment acoustic parameters on the sound energy distribution and the corresponding mechanisms are elaborated through numerical examples and acoustic theory.Simulation results reveal that,in a situation where sediment P-wave speed>water sound speed> sediment S-wave speed,the greater the values of density and P-wave speed in sediment,the more likely it is that the sound energy remains in the water column without leaking to the sea floor.Conversely,the influence of the variation of S-wave speed is reversed.Basement influence on the sound propagation in the fluid layer is approximately negligible if the sediment layer is sufficiently thick.     

Sound attenuation on an ocean shelf at short ranges from a source in the presence of surface waves

The effect of surface roughness on the attenuation of low-frequency acoustic waves on a shallow ocean shelf is analyzed using numerical simulation. We focus here on transmission loss during propagation at short (less than 50 water layer depths) ranges from the sound source. The effect is considered both for a soft and hard bottom, when the sound velocity in the bottom is, respectively, lower or higher than the sound velocity in seawater. It is shown that to correctly predict losses at a short range in the presence of a rough upper boundary, it is necessary to take into account the interaction of both propagation and leaky modes. In the case of a hard bottom compared to a low-velocity one, the effect of surface roughness on propagation turned out to be the most pronounced.     

Features of the energy structure of acoustic fields in the ocean with two-dimensional random inhomogeneities

The paper is devoted to the analytic study and numerical simulation of mid-frequency acoustic signal propagation in a two-dimensional inhomogeneous random shallow-water medium. The study was carried out by the cross section method (local modes). We present original theoretical estimates for the behavior of the average acoustic field intensity and show that at different distances, the features of propagation loss behavior are determined by the intensity of fluctuations and their horizontal scale and depend on the initial regular parameters, such as the emission frequency and size of sound losses in the bottom. We establish analytically that for the considered waveguide and sound frequency parameters, mode coupling effect has a local character and weakly influences the statistics. We establish that the specific form of the spatial spectrum of sound velocity inhomogeneities for the statistical patterns of the field intensity is insignificant during observations in the range of shallow-water distances of practical interest.     

Modeling the propagation of nonlinear three-dimensional acoustic beams in inhomogeneous media

A three-dimensional model of the forward propagation of nonlinear sound beams in inhomogeneous media, a generalized Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov equation, is described. The Texas time-domain code (which accounts for paraxial diffraction, nonlinearity, thermoviscous absorption, and absorption and dispersion associated with multiple relaxation processes) was extended to solve for the propagation of nonlinear beams for the case where all medium properties vary in space. The code was validated with measurements of the nonlinear acoustic field generated by a phased array transducer operating at 2.5 MHz in water. A nonuniform layer of gel was employed to create an inhomogeneous medium. There was good agreement between the code and measurements in capturing the shift in the pressure distribution of both the fundamental and second harmonic due to the gel layer. The results indicate that the numerical tool described here is appropriate for propagation of nonlinear sound beams through weakly inhomogeneous media.     

利用多角度海底反向散射信号进行地声参数估计

针对现有海底地声参数估计方法的不足,提出了利用相控参量阵浅地层剖面仪接收的多角度海底反向散射信号进行地声参数估计的方法,首先利用正下方和斜入射方向上沉积层上、下表面的差频反向散射信号进行沉积层厚度和声速估计,然后利用正下方沉积层上、下表面两个不同频率的差频信号的反向散射信号估计沉积层衰减系数,最后利用正下方沉积层上表面原频反向散射信号估计沉积层阻抗,计算沉积层密度从而解决和声速的耦合性,通过水池试验验证了该方法的有效性。     

Dependence of the Mean Intensity of a Low-Frequency Acoustic Field on the Bottom Parameters of a Shallow Sea with Random Volumetric Water-Layer Inhomogeneities

The study is devoted to statistical modeling of low-frequency acoustic signal propagation in a twodimensionally inhomogeneous random shallow sea with a thermocline and differing penetrability of the bottom. Calculations are performed using the local-mode representation of the solution in the one-way propagation approximation. Plots are presented for the behavior of the mean acoustic field intensity for different sound velocity and density values in the bottom. It is shown that the earlier described effect of a decrease in propagation losses in a model randomly inhomogeneous shallow sea with an absorbing bottom significantly depends on the parameters of bottom sediments and is more strongly manifested for bottom boundaries with greater penetrability.     

Effect of the sound velocity stratification in the bottom sediment layer on the diffraction focusing of an acoustic field in a shallow sea

It is shown that an increase in the sound velocity gradient in the bottom sediment layer results in the formation of additional zones of diffraction focusing of the acoustic field generated by a vertical line array in the water layer. It is also established that, depending on the sound velocity step at the upper boundary of the sediment layer, the diffraction focusing of the acoustic field in the main focusing zones can be enhanced or reduced.     

Mid-frequency geoacoustic inversion using bottom loss data from the Shallow Water 2006 Experiment

Geoacoustic inversion work has typically been carried out at frequencies below 1 kHz, assuming flat, horizontally stratified bottom models. Despite the relevance to Navy sonar systems many of which operate at mid-frequencies (1-10 kHz), limited inversion work has been carried out in this frequency band. This paper is an effort to demonstrate the viability of geoacoustic inversion using bottom loss data between 2 and 5 kHz. The acoustic measurements were taken during the Shallow Water 2006 Experiment off the coast of New Jersey. A half-space bottom model, with three parameters density, compressional wave speed, and attenuation, was used for inversion by fitting the model to data in the least-square sense. Inverted sediment sound speed and attenuation were compared with direct measurements and with inversion results using different techniques carried out in SW06. Inverted results of the present work are consistent with other measurements, considering the known spatial variability in this area. The observations and modeling results demonstrate that forward scattering from topographical changes is important at mid-frequencies and should be taken into account in sound propagation predictions and geoacoustic inversion. To cope with fine-scale topographic variability, measurement technique such as averaging over tracks may be necessary.     

Long-range sound propagation in the central part of the Barents Sea

The data of the experiments on long-range propagation of explosion-generated and tonal sound signals, which had been performed in different years in the central part of the Barents Sea in summertime conditions, are used to analyze the space structure of the sound field intensity, to estimate the attenuation coefficient due to the sound energy loss in the bottom sediments, and to determine the frequency dependence of this coefficient. A comparison of the data on the long-range propagation of explosion-generated signals is performed between two experiments carried out on the same 230-km-long path crossing the Central Basin of the Barents Sea, several years in succession. The two experiments differ in the propagation conditions: in the first experiment, a near-bottom sound channel extends along the entire path, and in the second experiment, the path crosses a frontal zone characterized by fairly complex variations of the sound speed field. Calculations are carried out to show that the specific behavior of the frequency dependence of attenuation can be explained by the powerlaw frequency dependence (with an exponent of 1.4) of the sound absorption in the water-saturated upper layer of the bottom sediments. It is also shown that the difference in the decay laws obtained for the sound field levels in the two experiments is caused by the difference in the corresponding hydrological conditions.     

Determination of the inhomogeneous structure of a medium from its plane wave reflection response,part II: A numerical approximation

This paper is concerned with a standard one dimensional inverse scattering problem: given the reflection response of an unknown inhomogeneous medium for plane waves under normal or oblique incidence, determine its sound speed and density structures. The problem is solved by means of a simple numerical technique which involves only fast Fourier transform operations and numerical integration of ordinary differential equations. Three cases are specifically considered: (a) sound speed is unknown, density is known; (b) sound speed is known, density is unknown; (c) sound speed and density are to be determined simultaneously. Numerical simulations performed on reflection coefficients computed in Part I for a limited band of frequencies lead to accurate reconstructions of the original structures of various media.     

Geoacoustic Inversion Based on a Vector Hydrophone Array

We propose a geoacoustic inversion scheme employing a vector hydrophone array based on the fact that vector hydrophone can provide more acoustic field information than traditional pressure hydrophones. Firstly, the transmission loss of particle velocities is discussed. Secondly, the sediment sound speed is acquired by a matchedfield processing （MFP） procedure, which is the optimization in combination of the pressure field and vertical particle velocity field. Finally, the bottom attenuation is estimated from the transmission loss difference between the vertical particle velocity and the pressure. The inversion method based on the vector hydrophone array mainly has two advantages： One is that the MFP method based on vector field can decrease the uncertain estimation of the sediment sound speed. The other is that the objective function based on the transmission loss difference has good sensitivity to the sediment attenuation and the inverted sediment attenuation is independent of source level. The validity of the inverted parameters is examined by comparison of the numerical results with the experimental data.     

Sound propagation in inhomogeneous waveguides with sound-speed profiles using the multimodal admittance method

The multimodal admittance method and its improvement are presented to deal with various aspects in underwater acoustics, mostly for the sound propagation in inhomogeneous waveguides with sound-speed profiles, arbitrary-shaped liquid-like scatterers, and range-dependent environments. In all cases, the propagation problem governed by the Helmholtz equation is transformed into initial value problems of two coupled first-order evolution equations with respect to the modal components of field quantities(sound pressure and its derivative), by projecting the Helmholtz equation on a constructed orthogonal and complete local basis. The admittance matrix, which is the modal representation of Direchlet-to-Neumann operator, is introduced to compute the first-order evolution equations with no numerical instability caused by evanescent modes. The fourth-order Magnus scheme is used for the numerical integration of differential equations in the numerical implementation. The numerical experiments of sound field in underwater inhomogeneous waveguides generated by point sources are performed. Besides, the numerical results computed by simulation software COMSOL Multiphysics are given to validate the correction of the multimodal admittance method. It is shown that the multimodal admittance method is an efficient and stable numerical method to solve the wave propagation problem in inhomogeneous underwater waveguides with sound-speed profiles, liquid-like scatterers, and range-dependent environments. The extension of the method to more complicated waveguides such as horizontally stratified waveguides is available.     

A hybrid model for the acoustic response of a two-dimensional rough surface to an impulse incident from a refracting medium

A numerical model to calculate the impulse response of a two-dimensional, impenetrable, rough surface directly in the time domain has been recently introduced [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (2000) 107, 27]. This model is based on wedge diffraction theory and assumes that the half-space containing the source and receiver is homogeneous. In this work, the model is extended to handle media where the index of refraction varies with the distance to the surface by merging the scattering model with a ray-based propagation model. The resulting hybrid model is tested against a Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method for the problem of backscattering from a corrugated surface in the presence of a refractive layer. This new model can be applied, for example, to calculate acoustic reverberation from the sea surface in cases where the water mass is inhomogeneous and in the presence of a subsurface bubble layer at low frequencies where dispersion is negligible. It can also be used for atmospheric propagation problems where there is a sound speed gradient overlying rough terrain.     

匹配垂直质点振速的浅海地声参数反演

海底声学参数对海洋波导中的声场特性研究和相关应用具有重要意义。针对一次夏季黄海声传播实验,分析了浅海负跃层环境下垂直质点振速的传播特性和简正波结构,说明当声源和接收器均位于负跃层下时,除海底附近外的大部分深度上垂直质点振速能量较高,且与声压相比,号数高的简正波对垂直质点振速的贡献更大,利用垂直质点振速进行匹配场反演能获得更高的海底参数敏感性。分析了海底吸收系数对垂直质点振速匹配场反演的影响,结果表明只有当进行匹配场反演时设置的海底吸收系数接近真实值时,才能获得准确的海底声速、密度和海深反演结果。利用实验中矢量水听器获取的垂直质点振速信号进行匹配场反演,将海底吸收系数在变化范围内取不同值对海底声速、密度和平均海深进行全局搜索,根据代价函数值最大确定了海底声速、密度及平均海深的反演结果,并利用不同距离上的声压传播损失反演出不同频率下的海底吸收系数。根据反演得到的海底声学参数计算声压传播损失,与实验中声压水听器测量结果符合较好。     

深海近距离声场频率-距离干涉结构反演海底声学参数

地声反演一般存在多解性的问题,不易有效分离沉积层声速与厚度,本文提出了一种当声源与接收水听器分别位于海面与海底附近时匹配声场干涉周期反演深海沉积层声速与厚度的方法。该声场周期结构由直达波与海底沉积层反射回波干涉形成,其干涉周期受沉积层声速和厚度影响,通过匹配实测与理论计算的声场干涉周期可有效反演沉积层声速和厚度。开展了深海实验验证,利用水听器接收到的近距离船舶噪声的声场干涉条纹,反演得到的实验海域海底沉积层声速与该海域海底表层采样平均值差小于20 m/s。数值仿真与实验结果表明该方法可以有效反演沉积层的声速与厚度。      

一种基于简正波模态频散的远距离宽带海底参数反演方法

在浅海环境中, 海底环境参数对声传播有着重要的影响. 由于利用单个宽带声源进行海底参数反演时, 随着距离的增大, 误差变大, 本文提出利用warping变换对在浅海波导中传播的, 不同距离上的两个宽带爆炸声源进行简正波的有效分离, 实现了宽带爆炸声源的远距离海底参数反演. 采用全局寻优遗传算法对提取出的模态频散到达时间差与理论计算的模态频散到达时间差进行匹配处理, 并结合随距离连续变化的声传播损失, 实现了利用单水听器进行海底参数的反演. 实验结果表明: 运用反演出的海底参数提取模态频散时间差和实测数据提取出的模态频散时间差吻合得较好; 而通过传播损失反演得到的海底衰减系数与频率呈指数关系. 最后, 对反演结果进行了后验概率分析, 并将本组爆炸声源的反演结果用于另一组不同距离上爆炸声源时仍然有效, 来评价反演结果的有效性.     

浅海起伏海面下气泡层对声传播的影响

分析了起伏海面下风浪引起的气泡层对海面反射损失和对声传播的影响.一方面,气泡层会改变原来水中的声速剖面;另一方面,气泡层会对声波产生散射和吸收作用.考虑以上两方面的因素,分析了不同风速下气泡层对海面反射损失和声传播损失的影响,仿真发现,在风速大于10 m/s时,对于2 k Hz以上频率时气泡层对小掠射角下海面反射损失的影响不可忽视.在给定的水声环境中,当声源深度和接收深度都为7 m时,风速为16 m/s的风浪下生成的气泡层,在10 km处对3 k Hz的声传播损失的影响达到8.1 d B.当声源深度和接收深度都为18 m时,风速为16 m/s的风浪下生成的气泡层,在10 km处对3 k Hz的声传播损失的影响达到4 d B.