Bottom-reflection phase-shift estimation from ASIAEX data

Based on the Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin modal condition, the phase shift of the bottom reflection coefficient can be extracted. The required input data for this inversion is the modal wavenumber. In this paper, the amount of phase shift of the bottom-reflection coefficient is estimated from the 2001 Asian Sea International Acoustic Experiment data in the East China Sea, in the frequency range of 100-200 Hz. Modal wavenumbers are estimated from using the cross-spectrum density matrix (CSDM) of reverberation data and a mode-shooting method. The error associated with the estimated phase shift is also discussed.     

Research on the sediment acoustic properties based on a water coupled laboratory measurement system

Abstract

The high-frequency acoustic properties of seafloor sediments are very significant in seafloor study and underwater acoustic study field. In order to measure the sound speed and the attenuation for the small-scale sediment cores more accurately, this study developed a water coupled acoustic laboratory measurement system based on Richardson-Briggs technique. This method used the correlation comparison of waveforms received in sediment core and in identical reference tubes filled with water to measure sound speed and attenuation. The sound speed and attenuation of a clayey silt sediment sample were measured using the water coupled acoustic laboratory measurement system. This frequency dependence of the sound speed and attenuation showed that the clayey silt sediment has a weak positive sound speed dispersion, while the attenuation increases with a strong positive gradient within the measurement frequency range. This study also noted that the measured sound speed ratio match well with the empirical equations from literature. The measured attenuation factor data can fall in the Hamilton’s empirical prediction range.     

Results from the Geoacoustic Inversion Techniques Workshop using modal inverse methods

This paper presents the results of a perturbative inverse approach applied to the range-dependent acoustic data provided as part of the Geoacoustic Inversion Techniques Workshop. The method is based on the Hankel transform relationship between complex-pressure field data measured on a horizontal array and the depth-dependent Green's function for a horizontally stratified medium. The input data to the inversion algorithm are discrete values of horizontal wavenumbers estimated for locally range-independent subapertures of the acoustic data. Inversion results are presented with emphasis placed on inverting for compressional wave speed as a function of both range and depth in the bottom.     

A modal approach to second-order analysis of sloshing using boundary element method

This paper aims at developing a modal approach for the non-linear analysis of sloshing in an arbitrary-shape tank under both horizontal and vertical excitations. For this purpose, the perturbation technique is employed and the potential flow is adopted as the liquid sloshing model. The first- and second-order kinematic and dynamic boundary conditions of the liquid-free surface are used along with a boundary element model which is formulated in terms of the velocity potential of the liquid-free surface. The boundary element model is used to determine the natural mode shapes of sloshing and their corresponding frequencies. Using the modal analysis technique, a non-linear model is presented for the calculation of the first- and second-order potential which can be used to obtain a reduced-order model for the sloshing dynamics. The results of the presented model are verified with the analytical solution for the second-order analysis of sloshing in a rectangular tank and very good results were obtained. Also, the second-order sloshing in some other example tanks with complex bed shapes is studied. The second-order resonance conditions of liquid sloshing in the example tanks are investigated and some conclusions are drawn.     

Effects of seabed properties on acoustic wave fields in a seismo-acoustic ocean waveguide

Acoustic wave fields in an ocean waveguide with a sediment layer having continuously varying density and sound speed overlying an elastic subbottom are considered in this analysis. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of seabed acoustic properties, including the density and sound speed of the sediment layer and subbottom, on the characteristics of the wave fields. Examination of the reflection coefficient, wavenumber spectrum, and noise intensity of the sound field through numerical analysis has shown that the variation in the acoustic properties in the sediment layer is an important factor in determining the reflected or noise sound fields. In particular, the sediment thickness-to-wavelength ratio and the types of variation of acoustic properties inside the layer give rise to many characteristics that potentially allow for acoustic inversion of the seabed properties. With regard to the wave-field components in a shallow-water environment, the various types of waves existing in a seismo-acoustic waveguide have been illustrated. The results indicate that the effects of the sediment properties on the wavenumber spectrum are primarily on the continuous and evanescent regimes of the wave field. The noise intensity generated by distributive random monopoles at various depths, together with the effect of refractive sound-speed distribution in the water column, has been obtained and analyzed.     

Coastal trapped waves in a two-layer ocean: Wave properties when the density interface intersects a sloping bottom

Properties of coastal trapped waves when the pycnocline intersects a sloping bottom are studied using a two-layer model which has slopes in both layers. In this system there is an infinite discrete sequence of modes, and four different sorts of waves exist: the barotropic Kelvin wave, the upper shelf wave, the lower shelf wave and the internal Kelvin-type wave. They all propagate with the coast to their right in the Northern Hemisphere. The upper and lower shelf waves are due to the topographic-effect on the upper-layer and lower-layer slopes, respectively. Their motions are dominant in the respective layers being accompanied by significant interface elevations. The properties of the upper (lower) shelf wave are almost unaffected by the existence of a lower-layer (upper-layer) slope. The motion of the internal Kelvin-type wave is confined to the region around the line where the density interface intersects the bottom slope.The modes, except that with the fastest phase speed (the barotropic Kelvin wave), are assigned mode numbers in order of descending frequency. Characteristics of Mode 1 change with wavenumber; the upper shelf wave for small wavenumbers and the internal Kelvin-type wave for large wavenumbers (high frequencies). The higher modes of Mode 2 and above can be classified into the upper and lower shelf waves.     

On natural modes in moonpools with recesses

The theoretical model of Molin [6] is extended to the case of rectangular moonpools with one or two recesses, as can be found in some drillships. Obtained natural frequencies and modal shapes of the piston and first sloshing modes are compared with experimental results available in literature, with good agreement. An approximation easy to implement is proposed for the natural frequency of the piston mode. Further illustrative results are presented when some geometrical parameters of the moonpool are being varied.     

Characterization of shallow ocean sediments using the airborne electromagnetic method

Experimental airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey data collected in Cape Cod Bay are used to derive continuous profiles of water depth, electrical depth, water conductivity, and bottom sediment conductivity. Through a few well-known empirical relationships, the conductivities are used, in turn, to derive density, porosity, sound speed, and acoustic reflectivity of the ocean bottom. A commercially available Dighem III AEM system was used for the survey without any significant modification. The helicopter-borne system operated at 385 and 7200 Hz; both were in a horizontal coplanar configuration. The interpreted profiles show good agreement with available ground truth data. Where no such data are available, the results appear to be very reasonable. Compared with the shipborne electrode array method, the AEM method can determine the necessary parameters at a much higher speed with a better lateral resolution over a wide range of water depths from 0 to perhaps 100 m. The bottom sediment conductivity that can be measured by the AEM method is closely related to physical properties of sediments, such as porosity, density, sound speed, and, indirectly, sediment types that might carry broad implications for various offshore activities.     

A voting-based approach for fast object recognition in underwateracoustic images

This paper describes a voting-based approach for the fast automatic recognition of man-made objects and related attitude estimation in underwater acoustic images generated by forward-looking sonars or acoustic cameras. In general, the continuous analysis of sequences of images is a very heavy task for human operators and this is due to the poor quality of acoustic images. Hence, algorithms able to recognize an object on the basis of a priori knowledge of the model and to estimate its attitude with reference to a global coordinate system are very useful to facilitate underwater operations like object manipulation or vehicle navigation. The proposed method is capable of recognizing objects and estimating their two-dimensional attitude by using information coming from boundary segments and their angular relations. It is based on a simple voting approach directly applied to the edge discontinuities of underwater acoustic images, whose quality is usually affected by some undesired effects such as object blurring, speckle noise, and geometrical distortions degrading the edge detection. The voting approach is robust, with respect to these effects, so that good results are obtained even with images of very poor quality. The sequences of simulated and real acoustic images are presented in order to test the validity of the proposed method in terms of average estimation error and computational load     

Segmentation and classification of shallow subbottom acoustic data,using image processing and neural networks

Subbottom acoustic profiler provides acoustic imaging of the subbottom structure constituting the upper sediment layers of the seabed, which is essential for geological and offshore geo-engineering studies. Delineation of the subbottom structure from a noisy acoustic data and classification of the sediment strata is a challenging task with the conventional signal processing techniques. Image processing techniques utilise the spatial variability of the image characteristics, known for their potential in medical imaging and pattern recognition applications. In the present study, they are found to be good in demarcating the boundaries of the sediment layers associated with weak acoustic reflectivity, masked by noisy background. The study deals with application of image processing techniques, like segmentation in identification of subbottom features and extraction of textural feature vectors using grey level co-occurrence matrix statistics. And also attempted classification using Self Organised Map, an unsupervised neural network model utilising these feature vectors. The methodology was successfully demonstrated in demarcating the different sediment layers from the subbottom images and established the sediments constituting the inferred four subsurface sediment layers differ from each other. The network model was also tested for its consistency, with repeated runs of different configuration of the network. Also the ability of simulated network was tested using a few untrained test images representing the similar environment and the classification results show a good agreement with the anticipated.     

On natural frequencies and modal shapes in two-dimensional asymmetric and symmetric moonpools in finite water depth

In this paper theoretical models are proposed for computing the natural frequencies and modal shapes of two-dimensional asymmetric and symmetric moonpools in the finite water depth. The boundary value problem is solved by using a domain decomposition approach. On the outer vertical boundary bounded by the beam of the two bodies, linearized velocity potential is assumed to be nil. Eigenvalue problem is formulated by matching the velocity potential and fluid flux on the common boundaries to obtain the natural frequencies and modal shapes of the free surface elevation. In the symmetric moonpool cases, so-called single mode approximations (SMA) have been derived and can be adopted for rapid estimation of the natural frequencies for both piston and sloshing modes. The present results have been extensively compared with the solutions using the two-dimensional infinite water depth model developed by Molin [1], the numerical solutions and experimental data by Faltinsen et al. [2]. It is found that the solutions have been improved from the infinite water depth model. It is demonstrated that the proposed models can well predict the resonance frequencies and modal shapes for the two-dimensional asymmetric and symmetric moonpools.     

Reflection Coefficient Calculation from Marine High Resolution Seismic Reflection (Chirp) Data and Application to an Archaeological Case Study

Chirp sub-bottom profilers produce high-resolution images of the near-surface. An attribute of the sea-bed reflection in chirp data are fluctuations in polarity between adjacent traces. Two models are proposed and presented to explain this: the first incorporates changes in an acoustic impedance gradient at the sea bed; the second uses changes in the thickness of the uppermost sediment layer. Mixing of adjacent traces produces a consistent polarity for the sea-bed reflector. Reflection coefficients are calculated, using amplitude information derived from single-traces, and polarity information from trace mixing, with application to a marine archaeological case study. The reflection coefficient calculated for the top of a buried 18th century wooden wreck is -0.26.     

Modal Inversion Analysis for Geoacoustic Properties of the New Jersey Continental Shelf in the SWAT Experiments

In this paper, inversion for bottom sediment properties at a site on the New Jersey continental shelf is studied as part of the Shallow Water Acoustic Technology (SWAT) project. A source towed at a constant water depth over a range of some tens of kilometers transmitted low-frequency continuous wave (cw) signals, which were measured on a bottom-moored vertical line array of receivers. For the along-shelf geometry, the zeroth-order asymptotic Hankel transform is then applied to the acoustic field at 50 Hz measured on the resulting synthetic aperture horizontal array created at each receiver depth. The resulting horizontal wave number spectra, which have peaks corresponding to the mode eigenvalues, are observed to have slightly different values at different receiver depths, and therefore, stochastic mode inversion is exploited to utilize all of the observed peak position information. The estimated sound-speed profile (SSP) for the upper 10 m of sediment is then compared with an inversion result obtained using midfrequency (2–16 kHz) chirp sonar pulses reflected at normal incidence from the sediment. Although obtained using totally different inversion techniques, both estimated profiles are shown to be in good agreement in the top 10 m of sediment. The acoustic field simulated using the inverted SSP also agrees well with the measured acoustic field at each receiver depth. Furthermore, simulated sound fields which use this profile as input data are shown to be effective in predicting the measurements obtained at a different frequency (125 Hz) and for a different (cross-shelf) geometry.      

Modal time-series structure in a shallow-water environment [HudsonCanyon region]

The broad-band acoustic characterization of the Hudson Canyon region off the New Jersey Continental Shelf is studied with an analysis of pressure time series generated by small explosive sources and recorded on a vertical line array (VLA). The average water depth is about 72 m and the average sound-speed profile (SSP) is downward-refracting over the midportions of the water column. The seabed is characterized by sediment layers possessing sand-like characteristics. The sound-speed structure of the water column and the seabed structure create distinguishing modal features in the impulse response in the 250-500-Hz hand. The details of the depth and range dependence of the time series on the VLA are sensitive to small perturbations of the structure of the upper layer of the SSP, the water depth, and the seabed structure. This sensitivity of the acoustic field is investigated using a broad-band range-dependent normal mode model called NAUTILUS. The representation of the spatial and temporal structure of the time series in terms of a modal structure reveals several unique effects of the SSP and the geoacoustic structure of the bottom on the group velocity of the modes over a large bandwidth. Individual modes can be identified in the measured data using direct data-simulation comparisons. Cross-correlation values between data and simulations in a 155-ms time window generally vary from 0.7 to 0.9 for sensors below the thermocline but are much smaller for sensors above the thermocline     

Computer Simulation of Coastal Acoustic Tomography by a Two-Dimensional Vortex Model

Computer simulation of coastal acoustic tomography with four, five, seven and nine stations was applied to two-dimensional vortex fields of horizontal domain 5 km × 5 km. Travel time data obtained in reciprocal directions between all pairs of acoustic stations were analyzed to reconstruct the vortex fields by the stochastic inverse method, reduced to the damped least squares method. The weighting factor appearing in the inverse analysis was determined by applying the L-curve method, in which a point making both the size of estimated error ‖y - Ex‖ and solution ‖x‖ as small as possible in a balance is specified as an optimum. The performance of this method was examined using two-dimensional vortex models which have different wavenumber spectra and adding the random error of different levels to the travel time difference data y. This study suggests that in the selection of the optimal weighting factor the horizontal section of the simulated tidal vortex fields can be well reconstructed by the coastal acoustic tomography system composed of five to seven acoustic stations located in the periphery of the vortex fields. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

海底浅表层沉积物原位声学测量方法探讨

研究透射式和折射式两类海底沉积声学原位测量方法,通过分析10种海底浅表层沉积物声学原位测量仪器的特征,指出不同声学原位测量技术对沉积物声学特性测量结果的影响。比较黄海海底浅表层沉积声学原位测量数据与实验室测量结果的差异,分析原位声学测量数据普遍小于实验室测量数据的原因,指出原位测量的作用和重要性。探讨指出海底浅表层沉积物原位声学测量所需要配合发展的其他物理性质原位测量技术。     

Rapid geoacoustic characterization using a surface ship of opportunity

The problem of rapid classification of the sea-floor sediment is addressed using horizontal line array (HLA) acoustic data from a passing surface ship. The data are beamformed to improve signal-to-noise ratio. The rapid geoacoustic characterization (RGC) algorithm involves extracting acoustic observables from the data (normalized striation slope, time spread, and transmission-loss slope). A simple single homogenous sediment layer over an acoustic half-space model is used to compute forward estimates of the acoustic observables. An exhaustive search over the two-parameter model is performed. The two parameters searched over are the sediment compressional speed (Cp), which is a polynomial function of the mean grain size (/spl phi/), and sediment thickness (H). This approach provides a real-time technique for classifying the sediment in a way that successfully reproduces the basic physics of propagation.     

Tests of models for high-frequency seafloor backscatter

The interaction of high-frequency sound with the seafloor is inherently a stochastic process. Inversion techniques must, therefore employ good stochastic models for bottom acoustic scattering. An assortment of physical models for bottom backscattering strength is tested by comparison with scattering strength data obtained at 40 kHz at three shallow water sites spanning a range of sediment types from fine silt to coarse sand. These acoustic data are accompanied by sediment physical property data obtained by core sample analysis and in situ probes. In addition, stereo photography was used to measure the power spectrum of bottom relief on centimeter scales. These physical data provided the inputs needed to test the backscatter models, which treat scattering from both the rough sediment-water interface and the sediment volume. For the three sites considered here, the perturbation model for scattering from a slightly rough fluid seafloor performs well. Volume scattering is predicted to be weak except at a site having a layer of methane bubbles     

Inversion for Range-Dependent Sediment Compressional-Wave-Speed Profiles From Modal Dispersion Data

A perturbative inversion method for estimating sediment compressional-wave-speed profiles from modal travel-time data is extended to include range-dependent environments. The procedure entails dividing a region into range-independent sections and obtaining estimates of the sediment properties for each region. Inversion results obtained using synthetic data show that range-dependent properties can be obtained if an experiment is designed to include multiple source/receiver combinations. This approach is applied to field data collected during the 2006 Shallow Water Experiment (SW06). The sediment compressional-wave-speed profiles resulting from analysis of the field data are evaluated by comparing acoustic fields predicted based on the inversion to acoustic fields measured during a different experiment conducted in the same region. The model is also compared to seismic reflection survey data collected during SW06. Resolution and variance estimated for the inversion results are also presented.      

Pseudorandom realization of transient acoustic waves scattered fromrandomly rough patches

A simple numerical technique is developed for generating pseudorandom realizations of three-dimensional (3-D) transient acoustic waves that are scattered from two-dimensional (2-D) patches of randomly rough surfaces. The rough surface height of a patch is represented numerically in the 2-D horizontal wavenumber plane by choosing a scheme for interpolation between pseudorandom complex coefficients. Using this approach, the realizations of the patches can be generated from experimentally measured roughness power spectra, and phase information is generated in the frequency domain that leads to time spreads in the time domain. The acoustic scattering is modeled here with first-order perturbation theory. The boundary conditions considered here are pressure-release, rigid, and fluid-fluid. Three different spatial windows are considered for defining the patches. In the time domain, the time spreads of the scattered waveforms agree with predictions. In the frequency domain, the phase is seen as a random walk. The solutions developed here can be used with normal mode propagation models or ray propagation models