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In this paper, the scattering from a fluid-filled (infinite length) cylinder is considered. This cylinder, C, has a different interior sound speed and density than the surrounding water. Within the cylinder's interior, there are a number of smaller cylinders, inclusions, with yet other sound speeds and densities. The mean coherent field scattered from C is computed using Monte Carlo simulations with respect to the random realizations of the inclusion positions and compared to the results computed using an effective sound speed for C. An original formula for the effective sound speed is derived by equating the reflection coefficient for C (without inclusions) to the expected coherent scattered field from C with inclusions, assuming a single-scattering approximation. A single realization of inclusions is also considered with the backscattered spectra averaged azimuthally over the angle of the source/receiver pair. This result is then compared to the coherent fields predicted by the effective medium theory. This is performed for both spectra and the computed time series.

The need to predict acoustic propagation through marine sediments that contain gas bubbles has become increasingly important for civil engineering and climate studies. There are relatively few in situ acoustic wave propagation studies of muddy intertidal sediments, in which bubbles of biogenic gas (generally methane, a potent greenhouse gas) are commonly found. We used a single experimental rig to conduct two in situ intertidal acoustical experiments to improve understanding of acoustic remote sensing of gassy sediments, eventually including gas bubble size distributions. In the first experiment, we measured sediment sound speed and attenuation between four aligned hydrophones for a quasi-plane wave propagating along the array. The second experiment involved a focused insonified sediment volume created by two transducers emitting coincident sound beams at different frequencies that generated bubble-mediated acoustic signals at combination frequencies. The results from sediment core analyses, and comparison of in situ acoustic velocity and attenuation values with those of water-saturated sediments, together provide ample evidence for the presence of in situ gas bubbles in the insonified volumes of sediments. These datasets are suitable for linear and non-linear inversion studies that estimate in situ greenhouse gas bubble populations, needed for future acoustical remote sensing applications.

Broadband spectrograms from surface ships are employed in convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to predict the seabed type, ship speed, and closest point of approach (CPA) range. Three CNN architectures of differing size and depth are trained on different representations of the spectrograms. Multitask learning is employed; the seabed type prediction comes from classification, and the ship speed and CPA range are estimated via regression. Due to the lack of labeled field data, the CNNs are trained on synthetic data generated using measured sound speed profiles, four seabed types, and a random distribution of source parameters. Additional synthetic datasets are used to evaluate the ability of the trained CNNs to interpolate and extrapolate source parameters. The trained models are then applied to a measured data sample from the 2017 Seabed Characterization Experiment (SBCEX 2017). While the largest network provides slightly more accurate predictions on tests with synthetic data, the smallest network generalized better to the measured data sample. With regard to the input data type, complex pressure spectral values gave the most accurate and consistent results for the ship speed and CPA predictions with the smallest network, whereas using absolute values of the pressure provided more accurate results compared to the expected seabed types.

Multiple approaches for depth estimation in deep-ocean environments are discussed. First, a multispectral transformation for depth estimation (MSTDE) method based on the low-spatial-frequency interference in a constant sound speed is derived to estimate the source depth directly. To overcome the limitation of real sound-speed profiles and source bandwidths on the accuracy of MSTDE, a method based on a convolution neural network (CNN) and conventional beamforming (CBF) preprocessing is proposed. Further, transfer learning is adapted to tackle the effect of noise on the estimation result. At-sea data are used to test the performance of these methods, and results suggest that (1) the MSTDE can estimate the depth; however, the error increases with distance; (2) MSTDE error can be moderately compensated through a calculated factor; (3) the performance of deep-learning approach using CBF preprocessing is much better than those of MSTDE and traditional CNN.

The ambient sound field in the ocean can be decomposed into a linear combination of two independent fields attributable to wind-generated wave action at the surface and noise radiated by ships. The vertical coherence (the cross-spectrum normalized by the power spectra) and normalized directionality of wind-generated noise in the ocean are stationary in time, do not vary with source strength and spectral characteristics, and depend primarily on the local sound speed and the geoacoustic properties which define the propagation environment. The contribution to the noise coherence due to passing vessels depends on the range between the source and receiver, the propagation environment, and the effective bandwidth of the characteristic source spectrum. Using noise coherence models for both types of the sources, an inversion scheme is developed for the relative and absolute contribution of frequency dependent ship noise to the total sound field. A month-long continuous ambient sound recording collected on a pair of vertically aligned hydrophones near Alvin Canyon at the New England shelf break is decomposed into time-dependent ship noise and wind-driven noise power spectra. The processing technique can be used to quantify the impact of human activity on the sound field above the natural dynamic background noise, or to eliminate ship noise from a passive acoustic monitoring data set.

Measurements of the phase velocity of compressional sound waves in water-saturated granular materials are reported for the 1.0-2.0 MHz frequency range. The sound speed estimates are based on travel times through granular layer thicknesses ranging from 8 to 17 mm. Three types of granular media were used: 336 μm median diameter glass beads and two natural sands with median diameters of 219 and 406 μm. These grain sizes and frequency range correspond to 0.5ka1.2, where k is the wavenumber and a the grain radius. To remove trapped air, the samples were boiled under pressure before transfer to the measurement tank. The results are compared to previously reported experimental results and to the Schwartz and Plona [J. Appl. Phys. 55(11), 3971-3977 (1984)] multiple scattering prediction, confirming negative dispersion for ka 0.5. Scaling the data by a factor depending on porosity and grain density reduces the spread among the available phase speed estimates by nearly a factor of 2, from 12.5% to 6.9%.

The ultrasonic attenuation coefficient (ACE) can be used to classify tissue state. Pulse-echo spectral-based attenuation estimation techniques, such as the spectral-log-difference method (SLD), account for beam diffraction effects using a reference phantom having a sound speed close to the sound speed of the sample. Methods like SLD assume linear propagation of ultrasound and do not account for potential acoustic nonlinear distortion of the backscattered power spectra in both sample and reference. In this study, the ACE of a sample was computed and compared using the SLD with two independent references (high attenuating and low attenuating phantoms but with similar B/A values) and over several pressure levels. Both numerical and physical tissue-mimicking phantoms were used in the study. The results indicated that the biases in ACE increased when using a reference having low attenuation, whereas the high attenuating reference produced more consistent ACE. Furthermore, increments in ACE vs input pressure were correlated to the log-ratio of Gol'dberg numbers between the sample and reference ([Formula: see text] in simulations and [Formula: see text] in experiments). Therefore, the results suggest that to reduce bias in ACE using spectral-based methods, both the sound speed and the Gol'dberg number of the reference phantom should be matched to the sample.

A vertical line array can be deployed in deep water below the critical depth, the depth where the sound speed equals the sound speed at the surface, to take advantage of the lower ambient noise level (compared with above the critical depth) for target detection. To differentiate a submerged source from a surface source, a Fourier transform based method [McCargar and Zurk, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 133, EL320-325 (2013)] was proposed for a narrowband signal that exploits the depth-related harmonic (oscillation) feature of the beam power time series associated with the target arrival. In this paper, incoherent matched beam processing is used to estimate the target depth. Where the replica (calculated) beam intensity or amplitude time series best matches that of the data is used to estimate the source depth. This method is shown, based on simulated data, to provide a better depth resolution in general and better ability to estimate the depth of a very shallow source (say at 10 m) and can be used to complement the Fourier transform based method. It can be extended to process (random) broadband signals and to environments where the Lloyd's mirror theory is not valid.

A room fire creates temperature gradients and inhomogeneous time varying temperature, density, and flow fields. Experimental measurements of the room acoustic impulse/frequency response are presented and compared with a ray traced model. The results show that the fire causes wave-fronts to arrive earlier (due to the higher sound speed) and with more variation in the delay times (due to the sound speed perturbations). The frequency response shows that the modes are shifted up in frequency and high frequency (>2500 Hz) modes are significantly attenuated. Model results are compared with data and show good agreement in observed trends.

The activities of infaunal organisms, including feeding, locomotion, and home building, alter sediment physical properties including grain size and sorting, porosity, bulk density, permeability, packing, tortuosity, and consolidation behavior. These activities are also known to affect the acoustic properties of marine sediments, although previous studies have demonstrated complicated relationships between infaunal activities and geoacoustic properties. To avoid difficulties associated with real animals, whose exact locations and activities are unknown, this work uses artificial burrows and simulates infaunal activities such as irrigation, compaction, and tube building in controlled laboratory experiments. The results show statistically significant changes in sound speed and attenuation over a frequency range of 100–400 kHz, corresponding to wavelengths on the order of the burrow diameter. The greatest effects were observed for tubes constructed of hard shells which increased the attenuation by ∼30 dB m−1 across the measurement band. These results highlight the importance of biogenic hard structures such as tubes on sound attenuation and suggest that organisms that create hard structures may be good targets for acoustic mapping of infaunal abundance and distribution.

This paper develops an efficient three-dimensional (3D) underwater acoustic propagation model with multi-layered fluid seabeds based on the equivalent source method (ESM). It solves the Helmholtz equation exactly by a superposition of fields generated by equivalent sources. A linear system coupling ESM equations is derived by imposing boundary conditions and solved iteratively using the generalized minimum residual method. Unlike a direct ESM solver, matrix-vector products in each iteration are evaluated by a pre-corrected fast Fourier transformation (PFFT), significantly reducing the numerical cost and enabling efficient solution of 3D large-scale propagation. Moreover, sound speed profiles can be taken into account by dividing the water column into sub-layers, each of which requires an individual PFFT procedure using an FFT subgrid scheme. Simulations of propagation over a Gaussian canyon validate the PFFT-accelerated ESM (PFFT-ESM). The capability of the PFFT-ESM for 3D scattering problems is demonstrated by further presenting the Gaussian canyon simulations with corrugated surface waves.

Acoustic noise interferometry is applied to retrieve empirical Green's functions (EGFs) from the ambient and shipping noise data acquired in the Shallow Water 2006 experiment on the continental shelf off New Jersey. Despite strong internal wave-induced perturbations of the sound speed in water, EGFs are found on 31 acoustic paths by cross-correlating the noise recorded on a single hydrophone with noise on the hydrophones of a horizontal linear array about 3.6 km away. Datasets from two non-overlapping 15-day observation periods are considered. Dispersion curves of three low-order normal modes at frequencies below 110 Hz are extracted from the EGFs with the time-warping technique. The dispersion curves from the first dataset were previously employed to estimate the seabed properties. Here, using this seabed model, we invert the differences between the dispersion curves obtained from the two datasets for the variation of the time-averaged sound speed profile (SSP) in water between the two observation periods. Results of the passive SSP inversion of the second dataset are compared with the ground truth derived from in situ temperature measurements. The effect of temporal variability of the water column during noise-averaging time on EGF retrieval is discussed and quantified.

Over the past decade, the range of applications in biomedical ultrasound exploiting 3D printing has rapidly expanded. For wavefront shaping specifically, 3D printing has enabled a diverse range of new, low-cost approaches for controlling acoustic fields. These methods rely on accurate knowledge of the bulk acoustic properties of the materials; however, to date, robust knowledge of these parameters is lacking for many materials that are commonly used. In this work, the acoustic properties of eight 3D-printed photopolymer materials were characterised over a frequency range from 1 to 3.5 MHz. The properties measured were the frequency-dependent phase velocity and attenuation, group velocity, signal velocity, and mass density. The materials were fabricated using two separate techniques [PolyJet and stereolithograph (SLA)], and included Agilus30, FLXA9960, FLXA9995, Formlabs Clear, RGDA8625, RGDA8630, VeroClear, and VeroWhite. The range of measured density values across all eight materials was 1120–1180 kg [Formula: see text] m−3, while the sound speed values were between 2020 to 2630 m [Formula: see text] s−1, and attenuation values typically in the range 3–9 dB [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] cm−1.

Perfluoropentane droplets with cellulose nanofibers (CNF) shells have demonstrated better stability and easier surface modification as ultrasound contrast agents and drug delivery vehicles. This paper presents a theoretical model assuming a four-phase state “inverse antibubble,” with the core filled with gas perfluoropentane surrounded by liquid perfluoropentane. A continuous, incompressible, and viscoelastic stabilizing layer separates the core from the surrounding water. A parametric study is performed to predict the frequency-dependent attenuation coefficient, the speed of sound, and the resonance frequency of the droplets which have a mean diameter of 2.47 ± 0.95 μm. Results reveal that the CNF-stabilized perfluoropentane droplets can be modeled in a Rayleigh-Plesset like equation. We conclude that the shell strongly influences the acoustic behavior of the droplets and the resonance frequency largely depends on the initial gas cavity radius. More specifically, the peak attenuation coefficient and peak-to-peak speed of sound decrease with increasing shear modulus, shear viscosity, and shell thickness, while they increase with increasing gas cavity radius and concentration. The resonance frequency increases as shear modulus and shell thickness increase, while it decreases as shear viscosity and gas cavity radius increase. It is worth mentioning that droplet concentration has no effect on the resonance frequency.

Infrasonic signals refracted by thermal gradients in the rarefied upper atmosphere are modeled using a combination of ray tracing and weak shock theory to develop an understanding of thermospheric infrasound signals produced by energetic, transient sources. Canonical arrival structures in the form of u-wave signatures are identified for returns refracted at lower altitudes within the thermosphere, and possible multi-pathing produced by effective sound speed inflections are investigated to elucidate more complex arrival structures, which are found to be spatially localized. Variability in the source characteristics is investigated and it is found that whereas some waveform phase information is lost due to finite amplitude effects, arrival characteristics are strongly dependent on the peak overpressure near the source. Variability in the propagation path is considered using archived atmospheric specifications and implies that despite uncertainties related to the dynamic and sparsely sampled nature of the atmosphere, thermospheric signatures might be useful in estimating the yield for explosive sources. Last, thermospheric arrivals from a failed rocket launch, as well as those from several large chemical explosions, are analyzed and it is found that qualitative trends match those predicted, and analyses here provide additional insight into such signatures.

In addition to dissipation of acoustic energy in the seabed, bottom-interacting normal modes are attenuated by radiation of shear waves into soft sediments, where shear speed is small compared to the sound speed in water. The shear-wave contribution and the dissipation have distinct frequency dependencies, and their relative magnitude affects the observed frequency dependence of mode attenuation. Previous studies suggested that the shear-wave contribution to the attenuation is proportional to the cube of the small ratio of the shear and sound speeds. Here, coupling of compressional and shear waves in layered soft sediments is analyzed. Besides the well-known, third-order contribution to the attenuation due to shear-wave generation at the water-sediment interface, a stronger, first-order, contribution is found to occur due to compressional-to-shear wave conversion at interfaces within the sediment. First-order effects of weak shear on mode travel times are also identified. Stratification of the sediment density and interference of shear waves reflected within the seabed control the frequency dependence of the shear-wave contribution to sound attenuation. With the shear-wave contribution being larger than previously estimated, its effect on the experimentally measured frequency dependence of the sound dissipation may need to be re-assessed.

When configured as a wide aperture array, only three hydrophones are required to localize dolphin sonar transmissions with unprecedented precision, even when the underwater sound scene of their natural habitat is complicated by many of them emitting echolocation “click” signals at the same time. Given the sensor position coordinates and speed of sound travel, the passive ranging by the wavefront curvature algorithm estimates the source range and bearing, using range difference measurements between signals, arriving at two adjacent pairs of widely spaced sensors. If the sensor positions are not strictly collinear, then the source range estimates are biased. This problem is overcome by modifying the input parameters to the basic passive ranging algorithm. The experimental results for the estimated source positions are found to agree with the predicted localization performance for a wide aperture array passive ranging sonar. The precision of the source bearing estimates is 0.005°, which is independent of the source range. The precision of the source range estimates degrades a hundredfold (from 2.5 cm to 2.6 m) for a tenfold increase in source range (33–318 m). A lower bound for the peak-to-peak source levels of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) is 183 ± 2 dB re 1 μPa for regular click pulses.When configured as a wide aperture array, only three hydrophones are required to localize dolphin sonar transmissions with unprecedented precision, even when the underwater sound scene of their natural habitat is complicated by many of them emitting echolocation “click” signals at the same time. Given the sensor position coordinates and speed of sound travel, the passive ranging by the wavefront curvature algorithm estimates the source range and bearing, using range difference measurements between signals, arriving at two adjacent pairs of widely spaced sensors. If the sensor positions are not strictly collinear, then the source range estimates are biased. This problem is overcome by modifying the input parameters to the basic passive ranging algorithm. The experimental results for the estimated source positions are found to agree with the predicted localization performance for a wide aperture array passive ranging sonar. The precision of the source bearing estimates is 0.005°, which is independent of the...

The phase speed of a bubbly liquid has been inferred at the single bubble resonance. The difficulty in this measurement is the fact that acoustic absorption is very strong at the single bubble resonance making it impossible to measure with standard techniques, e.g., time-of-flight or the use of standing waves. Instead, the strong absorption was exploited by first measuring the change in the reflection coefficient and relating it to the acoustic impedance and the sound speed. A sound speed of less than 2 m/s was determined possibly making it one of the slowest sound speeds ever recorded.

Based on a three-dimensional Hamiltonian ray tracing program in spherical coordinates, the effective sound speed is confirmed as the determining factor that influences the infrasound propagation path, and a theoretical model for the back-projected infrasound propagation trajectory is established. In this paper, the mass spectrometer incoherent scatter radar model (MSISE00) and horizontal wind model (HWM93) are first used to obtain the effective sound speed at different altitudes in summer and winter in Beijing. Then, the propagation paths generated by an infrasound source in Beijing are simulated with a conventional model. Some of the simulated rays are used to verify the back-projection model, and the verification has a high degree of coincidence with the simulation. Finally, using an experiment to validate the back-projection model, the altitude localization essentially conforms to the true value, proving the feasibility of the ray tracing back-projection algorithm.

It has been demonstrated that an estimate of an empirical Green's function (EGF) can be extracted from the ocean ambient noise cross-correlation functions, which can provide an alternative method for ocean acoustic tomography. However, the requirement for a long recording time to obtain EGFs with a high signal-to-noise ratio limits the application. This article focuses on using array signal processing to accelerate the convergence rate of EGFs between two horizontally separated arrays. With the extracted EGFs and data assimilation, ocean sound speed profiles (SSPs) can be inverted every 2 h in shallow water. The experimental results indicate that the variation in ocean SSPs can be reconstructed with reasonable agreement using an average variance of 1.14 m/s over three months.

International audience; This paper reports a theoretical study of the sound propagation in a rectangular waveguide loaded by closely-spaced elongated side-branch resonators forming a simple low-frequency broadband reactive silencer. Semi-analytical calculations account for the evanescent modes both in the main waveguide and side-branch resonators and for the viscothermal losses in the silencer elements.Reasonable accuracy is maintained in the evaluation of transmission, reflection, and absorption coefficients, while the calculation time is reduced by a few hundred times in comparison with the finite element method. Therefore, the proposed method is particularly suitable for optimization procedure. The lengths of the individual equally spaced side-branch resonators are optimized by a heuristic evolutionary algorithm that maximizes the minimum transmission loss (TL) over a predefined frequency range. Numerical results indicate that the minimum TL of the optimized silencers is reduced due to the destructive effect of the evanescent coupling from the resonators of the nearest side-branches. In the opposite, the TL increases linearly with the number of the side-branch resonators.

In the ocean waveguide, the sediment sound speed has a simple relationship with the group speed of the highest order mode that propagates close to the critical angle. The paper shows that robust estimates of the sound speed are obtained from estimates of the "critical" mode group speed determined from analysis of the energy distribution of the time-warped spectrum of a broadband signal. The method is applied to experimental data collected in the Yellow Sea of China. Estimated sound speeds agreed closely with expected values for clayey slit (1531 m/s) and sandy silt (1593 m/s) sediment at the sites.

The sound speed of a porous medium changes with fluid substitution when the fluids have different acoustic properties. The authors demonstrate that coda wave interferometry is capable of sensing subtle local sound speed changes associated with minute fluid displacements, Δh. In fact the resolution on fluid motion is given by a simple scaling relationship, Δ h min / λ ∼ t − γ e 2 α t, where t is the waveform time, λ is the wavelength, γ is a constant that varies based on the nature of the acoustic propagation, and α is a system specific acoustic attenuation coefficient. In contrast to the conventional notion that later arrivals (further into the coda) give greater sensitivity to fluid movement, this scaling relationship suggests that there is a temporal optimum in sensitivity to Δh. This is the case even though later arrivals exhibit signal intensities well above the noise floor. The authors elucidate the physical basis for determining the waveform time at which the sensitivity is optimal.

Recently, metasurfaces have been proven to be effective and compact devices for the design of arbitrary wavefronts. Metasurfaces are planar metamaterials with a subwavelength thickness that allows wavefront shaping by introducing in-plane variations, namely, gradients, in the spatial wave response of these flat structures. Here we report a new class of acoustic gradient-index (GRIN) metasurfaces engineered from soft graded-porous silicone rubber with a high acoustic index for broadband ultrasonic three-dimensional wavefront shaping in water. The functionalities of these soft flat lenses are illustrated through various experiments, which demonstrate beam steering and beam focusing, as well as vortex beam generation in free space. These new GRIN metasurfaces may have important applications in various domains using designed ultrasonic fields (biomedical imaging, industrial non-destructive testing, contactless particle manipulation), since their fabrication is very straightforward with common polymer science engineering., Here, the authors report an approach for creating various acoustic wavefronts in free space by using soft gradient-index porous metasurfaces. These flat lenses generate steered planar, focused spherical and helical ultrasonic beams in water by manipulating the spatial distribution of the material porosity.

With focused ultrasound (FUS) gaining popularity as a therapeutic modality for brain diseases, the need for skull phantoms that are suitable for evaluating FUS protocols is increasing. In the current study, the acoustical properties of several three-dimensional (3D) printed thermoplastic samples were evaluated to assess their suitability to mimic human skull and bone accurately. Samples were 3D printed using eight commercially available thermoplastic materials. The acoustic properties of the printed samples, including attenuation coefficient, speed of sound, and acoustic impedance, were investigated using transmission-through and pulse-echo techniques. The ultrasonic attenuation, estimated at a frequency of 1.1 MHz, varied from approximately 7 to 32 dB/cm. The frequency dependence of attenuation was described by a power law in the frequency range of 0.2–3.5 MHz, and the exponential index of frequency was found to vary from 1.30 to 2.24. The longitudinal velocity of 2.7 MHz sound waves was in the range of 1700–3050 m/s. The results demonstrate that thermoplastics could potentially be used for the 3D construction of high-quality skull phantoms.

A method to invert for the local sound speed profile (SSP) using only acoustic wavenumbers is proposed. Ocean sounds can be treated as acoustic energy trapped as discrete modes within the water column. Using estimated Eigenvalues (wavenumbers) from one or more modes, a method to numerically invert for the SSP can be posed as a linear Fredholm integral equation of the first kind. Therefore, the vertical SSP can be estimated with a well-placed, sufficiently long, array at one or more frequencies. Though this inversion can be unstable and non-unique, recent improvements in sparse inversions can lead to robust estimates even without an accurate starting SSP. Using the perturbative difference between the estimated wavenumbers and those calculated from the acoustic kernel, both the SSP and kernel are updated each iteration. Careful consideration must be made of the acoustic frequency, number of modes, a priori environmental information (e.g., water depth), and array length. The method will be first demonstrated on simulated recordings based on the LIDDEX data set. [Work supported by ONR.]

Seabed variability introduced by physical or biogenic processes contributes to multi-scale horizontal and vertical variability in seabed acoustic and geotechnical properties. An experiment was conducted near the mouth of Mobile Bay to investigate such spatial variability over a mud-sand gradient. A normal-incidence bottom loss survey was conducted on a 750 × 1500 m2 grid with 50-m track-line spacing, in which a broadband acoustic source transmitted frequency-modulated chirps (1–100 kHz) every second, resulting in dense sampling of the seabed reflection coefficient over a wide frequency band. Diver cores were collected in the survey area for direct analysis of near-surface seabed properties. Cores were acoustically logged to obtain vertical profiles of sound speed and attenuation (10–1000 kHz) and then analyzed for physical properties (porosity, grain size, carbon content), infauna community composition, and sediment strength properties. Additionally, in situ portable free fall penetrometer measurements were conducted within the survey area to characterize geotechnical properties within the upper 50 cm of the sediment. Spatial distributions of properties estimated from bottom loss measurements (e.g. porosity and sound speed) will be compared with vertical profiles from the cores and from the penetrometer to examine potential connections between seabed acoustic, geotechnical, and biological parameters. [Sponsored by ONR.]

17 USC 105 interim-entered record; under review. The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003601 Due to seasonal ice cover, acoustics can provide a unique means for Arctic undersea communication, navigation, and remote sensing. This study seeks to quantify the annual cycle of the thermohaline structure in the Beaufort Sea and characterize acoustically relevant oceanographic processes such as eddies, internal waves, near-inertial waves (NIWs), and spice. The observations are from a seven-mooring, 150-km radius acoustic transceiver array equipped with oceanographic sensors that collected data in the Beaufort Sea from 2016 to 2017. Depth and time variations of the sound speed are analyzed using isopycnal displacements, allowing a separation of baroclinic processes and spice. Compared to lower latitudes, the overall sound speed variability is small with a maximum root mean square of 0.6 m/s. The largest source of variability is spice, most significant in the upper 100 m, followed by eddies and inter- nal waves. The displacement spectrum in the internal wave band is time dependent and different from the Garret- Munk (GM) spectrum. The internal wave energy varied with time averaging 5% of the GM spectrum. The spice sound-speed frequency spectrum has a form very different from the displacement spectrum, a result not seen at lower latitudes. Because sound speed variations are weak, observations of episodic energetic NIWs with horizontal cur- rents up to 20 cm/s have potential acoustical consequences. This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and M.K. was supported by an ONR Ocean Acoustics Graduate Student Fellowship under Award No. N00014-19-1-2203. The 600kHz ADCP and IPS ice draft data were supported by the ONR Arctic and Global Prediction Program (ONR 322AG) under Award No. N00014-15-1-2782. This material is based on work supported by the ONR under Award No. N00014-15-2068

A detailed investigation of the relationship between ultrasonic (US) properties and trabecular bone microstructure is difficult because of the great variability in the bone loss process. The aim of this work was twofold. First, to verify by compressive tests that the three-dimensional (3D)-printer is able to produce precisely and repeatedly “bone replica models” of different size and density. Following, replicas of the original specimens with two different polymers and thinned trabeculae models were used to investigate US properties (speed of sound, SOS, and backscatter coefficient), aiming to deconvolute the influence of material properties on ultrasound characteristics. The results revealed that matrix material properties influence only the magnitude of the backscatter coefficient, whereas the characteristic undulated patterns are related to the trabecular structure. Simulation of perforation and thinning of cancellous bone, associated with bone loss, showed that SOS and mechanical properties were reduced perfectly linearly with apparent density when structure deteriorated. The 3D-printed bone replicas have the potential to enable systematic investigations of the influence of structure on both acoustical and mechanical properties and evaluate changes caused by bone loss. The development of replicas from materials with properties close to those of bone will permit quantitative conclusions for trabecular bone.

Vortex-sheet models of jets are widely used to describe the dynamics of modes, such as the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and guided acoustic waves. However, it is seldom pointed out in the literature the absence of the free-stream acoustic modes in the vortex-sheet spectrum. This indicates that free-stream sound waves are not eigensolutions of the parallel jet. This family of modes is important if, for example, one is interested in problems of sound emission or flow-acoustic interactions. In this work we show how a distantly-confined jet may be used as a surrogate problem for the free jet, in which free-stream acoustic waves appear as a set of discrete modes. Comparing the modes observed in the free jet with those of the distantly-confined jet, we show that, other than the free-stream acoustic modes, the eigenvectors and eigenvalues converge with wall distance. The proposed surrogate problem thus efficiently reproduces the dynamics of the original problem, while allowing to account for the dynamics of free-stream acoustic modes., Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures

In ultrasound tomography, the speed of sound inside an object is estimated based on acoustic measurements carried out by sensors surrounding the object. An accurate forward model is a prominent factor for high-quality image reconstruction, but it can make computations far too time-consuming in many applications. Using approximate forward models, it is possible to speed up the computations, but the quality of the reconstruction may have to be compromised. In this paper, a neural network -based approach is proposed, that can compensate for modeling errors caused by the approximate forward models. The approach is tested with various different imaging scenarios in a simulated two-dimensional domain. The results show that with fairly small training datasets, the proposed approach can be utilized to approximate the modelling errors, and to significantly improve the image reconstruction quality in ultrasound tomography, compared to commonly used inversion algorithms.

Aberrations induced by soft tissue inhomogeneities often complicate high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapies. In this work, a bilayer phantom made from polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel and ballistic gel was built to mimic alternating layers of water-based and lipid tissues characteristic of an abdominal body wall and to reproducibly distort HIFU fields. The density, sound speed, and attenuation coefficient of each material were measured using a homogeneous gel layer. A surface with random topographical features was designed as an interface between gel layers using a 2D Fourier spectrum approach and replicating different spatial scales of tissue inhomogeneities. Distortion of the field of a 256-element 1.5 MHz HIFU array by the phantom was characterized through hydrophone measurements for linear and nonlinear beam focusing and compared to the corresponding distortion induced by an ex vivo porcine body wall of the same thickness. Both spatial shift and widening of the focal lobe were observed, as well as dramatic reduction in focal pressures caused by aberrations. The results suggest that the phantom produced levels of aberration that are similar to a real body wall and can serve as a research tool for studying HIFU effects as well as for developing algorithms for aberration correction.

The Green's function retrieval in media with horizontal boundaries usually only considers the extraction of direct and reflected waves but ignores the virtual head waves, which have been observed experimentally from ocean ambient noise and used to invert for geometric and environmental parameters. This paper derives the extraction of virtual head waves from ocean ambient noise using a vertically spaced sensor pair in a Pekeris waveguide. Ocean ambient noise in the water column is a superposition of direct, reflected, and head waves. The virtual head waves are produced by the cross-correlations between head waves and either reflected waves or other head waves. The locations of sources that contribute to the virtual head waves are derived based on the method of stationary phase. It is the integration over time of contributions from these sources that makes the virtual head waves observable. The estimation of seabed sound speed with virtual head waves using a vertical line array is also demonstrated. The slope of the virtual head waves is different from that of direct and reflected waves in the virtual source gather; it is therefore possible to constructively stack the virtual head waves. The predictions are verified with simulations.

Modeling a wind turbine sound field involves taking into account the main aeroacoustic sources that are generally dominant for modern wind turbines, as well as environmental phenomena such as atmospheric conditions and ground properties that are variable in both time and space. A crucial step to obtain reliable predictions is to estimate the relative influence of environmental parameters on acoustic emission and propagation, in order to determine the parameters that induce the greatest variability on sound pressure level. Thus, this study proposes a Morris sensitivity analysis of a wind turbine noise emission model combined with a sound propagation model in downwind conditions. The emission model is based on Amiet's theory and propagation effects are modeled by the wide-angle parabolic equation. The whole simulation takes into account ground effects (absorption through acoustic impedance and scattering through surface roughness) and micrometeorological effects (mean refraction through the vertical gradient of effective sound speed). The final results show that the parameters involved in atmospheric refraction and in ground absorption have a significant influence on sound pressure level. On the other hand, in the context of this study the relative air humidity and the ground roughness parameters appear to be negligible on sound pressure level sensitivity.

The narrow-angle parabolic equation (NAPE) with the effective sound speed approximation (ESSA) is widely used for sound and infrasound propagation in a moving medium such as the atmosphere. However, it is valid only for angles less than 20° with respect to the nominal propagation direction. In this paper, the wave equation and extra-wide-angle parabolic equation (EWAPE) for high-frequency (short-wavelength) sound waves in a moving medium with arbitrary Mach numbers are derived without the ESSA. For relatively smooth variations in the medium velocity, the EWAPE is valid for propagation angles up to 90°. Using the Pade (n,n) series expansion and narrow-angle approximation, the EWAPE is reduced to the wide-angle parabolic equation (WAPE) and NAPE. Versions of these equations are then formulated for low Mach numbers, which is the case that is usually considered in the literature. The phase errors pertinent to the equations considered are studied. It is shown that the equations for low Mach numbers and the WAPE with the ESSA are applicable only under rather restrictive conditions on the medium velocity. An effective numerical implementation of the WAPE for arbitrary Mach numbers in the Pade (1,1) approximation is developed and applied to sound propagation in the atmosphere.

This work shows that normal-mode attenuation coefficients can be extracted from ship noise and used to estimate the sound speed in gas-saturated sediments. In an experiment in the Sea of Galilee, a research vessel served as a noise source approaching a vertical hydrophone array at a constant speed. Twelve narrow-band components of the vessel noise in the frequency band 20–100 Hz were identified and mode filtered to estimate the normal-mode attenuation coefficients. The inversion results indicate that the sound speed in the sediments was approximately 170 m/s.

The broadband interference structure of sound propagation in a waveguide can be described by the waveguide invariant, β, that manifests itself as striations in the frequency-range plane. At any given range (r), there is a striation pattern in frequency ( ω ), which is the Fourier transform of the multipath impulse response (or Green's function). Moving to a different range ( r + Δ r ), the same pattern is retained but is either stretched or shrunken in ω in proportion to Δ r, according to Δ ω / ω = β ( Δ r / r ). The waveguide invariant property allows a time-domain Green's function observed at one location, g(r,t), to be extrapolated to adjacent ranges with a simple analytic relation: g ( r + Δ r , t ) ≃ g ( r , α ( t − Δ r / c ) ), where α = 1 + β ( Δ r / r ) and c is the nominal sound speed of 1500 m/s. The relationship is verified in terms of range variation of the eigenray arrival times via simulations and by using real data from a ship of opportunity radiating broadband noise (200–900 Hz) in a shallow-water environment, where the steep-angle arrivals contributing to the acoustic field have β ≈ 0.92.

Broadband data acquired during the Modal Mapping Experiment (MOMAX) V experiment are used to invert simultaneously for the three-dimensional (3D) water column sound speed profiles and the compressional wave speed and density profiles of the seabed in shallow waters off the coast of New Jersey. Linear Frequency Modulation sweep signals in the band 50–300 Hz are transmitted from a nearly stationary source at several discrete positions to a set of freely drifting receivers. Mode travel times are estimated from the signals acquired by the drifting buoys, and these are then used as input data in an inversion algorithm that estimates the acoustic properties of the water column and sediments. The resulting 3D compressional wave speed profiles in the seabed are generally consistent with the one-dimensional profile obtained during the narrowband component of MOMAX V, as well as the results from other experiments in the same area. The validity of the inversion results has also been assessed by the ability of the inverted model to predict the fields measured during the narrowband experiments.Broadband data acquired during the Modal Mapping Experiment (MOMAX) V experiment are used to invert simultaneously for the three-dimensional (3D) water column sound speed profiles and the compressional wave speed and density profiles of the seabed in shallow waters off the coast of New Jersey. Linear Frequency Modulation sweep signals in the band 50–300 Hz are transmitted from a nearly stationary source at several discrete positions to a set of freely drifting receivers. Mode travel times are estimated from the signals acquired by the drifting buoys, and these are then used as input data in an inversion algorithm that estimates the acoustic properties of the water column and sediments. The resulting 3D compressional wave speed profiles in the seabed are generally consistent with the one-dimensional profile obtained during the narrowband component of MOMAX V, as well as the results from other experiments in the same area. The validity of the inversion results has also been assessed by the ability of the in...

An investigation on the propagation of underground-explosion-generated infrasonic waves is carried out via numerical simulations of the equations of fluid dynamics. More specifically, the continuity, momentum, and energy conservation equations are solved along with the Herzfeld-Rice equations in order to take into account the effects of vibrational relaxation phenomena. The radiation of acoustic energy by the ground motion caused by underground explosions is initiated by enforcing the equality, at ground level, between the component of the air velocity normal to the Earth's surface and the normal velocity of the ground layer. The velocity of the ground layer is defined semi-empirically as a function of the depth of burial and of the yield. The effects of the depth and of the source energy on the signals recorded in the epicentral zone are first discussed. The tropospheric and stratospheric infrasonic phases traveling at a long-range are then analyzed and explained. Synthesized ground waveforms are finally discussed and compared to those recorded at the I45RU station of the International Monitoring System after the 2013 North-Korean test. Good agreement is found between numerical results and experimental data, which motivates the use of infrasound technologies alongside seismic techniques for the characterization of underground explosions.

The feasibility and the performance of controlling low frequency sound of loudspeaker systems under varying atmospheric conditions is examined experimentally. In the experiment, a control subwoofer array is canceling the sound of a primary subwoofer array over long distances (∼100 m) and in large areas (∼320 m2) using the pressure-matching method. To avoid the measurement of the sound field over the entire control area, a sound propagation model is introduced that is fitted in situ to model the radiation properties of the loudspeakers and the variation of the speed of sound. The results show that the control system reduces the sound pressure levels by up to 15–20 dB over the subwoofers' frequency range. However, the reduction can vary considerably depending on the specific atmospheric condition. The model-based approach reduces the number of required measurements and achieves similar reduction performance to the control based on direct measurements with considerably fewer microphone locations while also being more robust. Additionally, the sound propagation model enables the reduction of acoustic energy in virtual control zones that are far away from the microphone location. The investigated methodology has a direct application in the mitigation of sound from outdoor concerts.

Attenuation and group speed measurements are reported for water-saturated granular materials (natural sand and glass beads) at frequencies of 1.0 to 1.8 MHz. Median grain diameters were 219 to 497 μm, corresponding to kd≳1, i.e., the scattering regime. The measurements were made for different thicknesses of sediment resting on a reflective surface using a monostatic geometry. The attenuation estimates compare well with previously reported experimental results and to the predictions of multiple scattering theory, confirming in particular the tendency toward f 4 dependence for kd≳1. Group speed estimates exhibit the negative dispersion predicted by theory and are comparable in magnitude to previously reported measurements made using transmission geometries. It is found that the available data exhibit a O(10)% spread among the sound speed measurements at a given kd value, and that this spread is reduced to 2.2% when the data are scaled by a factor dependent on porosity and grain density, and that essentially all of the reduction can be attributed to differences in porosity.

It has been previously shown using synthetic data that dispersion tracking with particle filtering can be used for sediment sound speed inversion. Here, dispersion tracking is performed with data collected in the Gulf of Mexico for sediment sound speed and thickness and water column depth estimation. In this experiment, sound that propagates a long distance from the source allows the identification of dispersion curves reflecting the different group velocities of modal frequencies within and across modes. Although the data are noisy, dispersion curves are tracked with sequential filtering and used for inversion. Probability density functions of the three unknown parameters are obtained. Water column depth is estimated with little uncertainty. The estimated sound speed is representative of sandy sediment and the sediment thickness matches to a large extent prior knowledge.

Materials that simulate the ultrasonic properties of tissues are used widely for clinical and research purposes. However, relatively few materials are known to simulate the ultrasonic properties of cancellous bone. The goal of the present study was to investigate the suitability of using a polymer, open-cell rigid foam (OCRF) produced by Sawbones®. Measurements were performed on OCRF specimens with four different densities. Ultrasonic speed of sound and normalized broadband ultrasonic attenuation were measured with a 0.5 MHz transducer. Three backscatter parameters were measured with a 5 MHz transducer: apparent integrated backscatter, frequency slope of apparent backscatter, and normalized mean of the backscatter difference. X-ray micro-computed tomography was used to measure the microstructural characteristics of the OCRF specimens. The trabecular thickness and relative bone volume of the OCRF specimens were similar to those of human cancellous bone, but the trabecular separation was greater. In most cases, the ultrasonic properties of the OCRF specimens were similar to values reported in the literature for cancellous bone, including dependence on density. In addition, the OCRF specimens exhibited an ultrasonic anisotropy similar to that reported for cancellous bone.

This paper presents the results from a geoacoustic inversion study performed using a combustive sound source signal recorded on a vertical line array during the 2017 Seabed Characterization Experiment (SBCEX17). A single receiver modal estimation method (source deconvolution and warping) is recursively applied along the array channels to estimate modal time-frequency dispersion, resulting in modal dispersion data for 18 modes between modes 1 and 21. These data are then used as an input for trans-dimensional Bayesian geoacoustic inversion. The paper compares inversion results obtained with subsets of modes (1 to 7 and 1 to 15) to those obtained with the whole set (modes 1 to 21) to explore the data information content associated with high-order modes. The study shows that high-order modes enable the resolution of fine details in the seabed sound-speed profile, such as a small sound speed increase over the first 8 m of the seabed (i.e., within the upper portion of the so-called “mud layer,” an important feature of the experiment area). [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research.]

A moving source tomography experiment was conducted in 2016 off the coast of Southern California. From the travel time data extracted from the experiment, ocean sound speed and its uncertainty were estimated. The moving source poses extra complexity and adds components that need to be accounted for in a successful inversion. The sound speed estimation with uncertainties was validated against in situ observations to quantify the efficacy and accuracy of the method. Experimental results and additional simulations suggest that the ray diversity available in the moving source case reduces the posterior sound speed uncertainty compared to the fixed source case. [Work sponsored by the Office of Naval Research.]

Sound speed characteristics in the upper ocean are sometimes thought to be set by a combination of mostly one-dimensional vertical mixing processes and (slow) mesoscale advection and stirring. However, a series of recent projects have showcased the role of small-scale (tens of meters to tens of km horizontally), rapidly evolving (hours to days) submesoscale instabilities in setting both stratification and sound speed properties. The observations also reveal that sound speed structure set by such processes is fundamentally three dimensional, with significant lateral gradients at a broad range of scales. Some relevant processes are frontogenetic and create sometimes rapid secondary circulations near lateral density gradients. Some are associated with wind-driven near-inertial oscillations or internal waves. Some of the more interesting recent observations concern the intersection of submesoscale and internal wave processes. Here, I will review a few highlights from the last decade of observations on unbalanced, nonlinear processes that conspire to set density, spice, and sound speed profiles in several contrasting oceans.

The ocean is primarily composed of a series of increasingly dense fluid layers, defined by density stratification interfaces where medium properties, such as temperature and salinity, drive changes in medium density and compressibility. The transport of dissolved constituents (e.g., oxygen, heat, salt) between these oceanic fluid layers is strongly influenced by the intensity of the stratification interface. Active acoustics allow for high resolution observations of these interfaces, offering continuous data collection over broad spatial scales. In this work, we present a one-dimensional acoustic scattering model for predicting acoustic backscatter from stratification interfaces. The model is widely applicable to acoustic water column data collected with ship-mounted sonars and preliminary results, based on hydrographic profiles, suggest that, in many oceanic cases, sound speed perturbations drive the majority of acoustic scattering. Additionally, modeling results predict a frequency modulated backscattering intensity based on the sharpness of the stratification interface, suggesting the potential for remote estimation of medium properties through broadband acoustic inversion.

Nearshore and estuarine sediments experience varying sediment inputs that create sharp gradients in sediment properties over fairly small vertical and horizontal distances. In this study, we explored the sand-mud transition in sediment cores collected from Mobile Bay, AL, with acoustic and geotechnical approaches. A custom built instrument was used to measure depth profiles of tensile strength at cm-scale resolution. These measurements were compared to acoustic sound speed and attenuation across a range of frequencies. Cores collected exhibited a horizontal gradient from sand to mud across the study area with a sandy layer on top of muddier sediment in most cores. This study explicitly examines the relationship between acoustic sound speed and attenuation and strength-related properties of sediments such as cohesion that can be measured in situ more easily than textural properties (e.g., porosity and grain size). We compare our data to in situ normal incidence measurements and portable free fall penetrometer data as well as infaunal community composition to better relate acoustic, geotechnical, and biological properties across a gradient of sediments.