Physical model of acoustic forward scattering by cylindrical shell and its experimental validation

Research on the underwater target scattering can provideimportant theoretical support for target detection. The scatteringmodel of cylindrical shell is established in this paper. It is foundthat the forward target strength is much stronger and varies withangles of incident wave less significantly than backward targetstrength. The received forward signal strength fluctuates with thetarget moving due to the interference between direct signal andscattering signal, which is most significant when target approachesthe baseline. An experiment is carried out in an anechoic tank tovalidate the scattering model. The method of acquisiting forwardscattering in the tank is proposed. The forward and the backwardtarget strengths are achieved by using the pulse compressiontechnology, and they are about 3dB less than the modeling results.The forward scattering phenomena of quiescent and moving target aremeasured, which are similar to modeling results with differenttarget types.