Award Number: N00014 01WX40009
LONG-TERM GOALSOur long term goal is to develop accurate models for high-frequency acoustic penetration into, propagation within, and scattering from shallow water ocean sediments. This work should specifically improve the Navy's ability to detect buried mines and, in general, improve sonar performance in shallow water. Additional objectives of the NRL program are to understand and model the complex interactions among environmental processes, sediment structure, properties, and behavior. These models allow portability of high-frequency bottom interaction models to sites of naval interest.
OBJECTIVESProvide statistical characterization of the environmental properties, especially the roughness and sediment volume properties, required to determine and model the dominant mechanisms controlling the penetration of high-frequency acoustic energy into the seafloor. Determine the effects of biological, geological, biogeochemical, and hydrodynamic processes on the spatial and temporal distribution of sediment physical, geotechnical and geoacoustic properties at the experimental site. Develop predictive empirical and physical models of the relationships among those properties.
APPROACHThe "High-Frequency Sound Interaction in Ocean Sediments" DRI addresses high-frequency acoustic penetration into, propagation within, and scattering from the shallow-water seafloor. The primary goal of the proposed study is to understand the mechanisms for high-frequency acoustic energy penetration into sediments at low grazing angles. At present, three mechanisms are hypothesized to contribute to subcritical acoustic penetration. First, the porous nature of the sediment leads to a "slow" wave with a speed less than the speed of sound in water; thus no critical angle for that converted wave exists (Chotiros, 1995). Second, seafloor roughness diffracts energy into the sediment (Thorsos et al., 1997). Third, sediment volume heterogeneity scatters the evanescent wave energy that propagates along the seafloor interface into the sediment (Maguer et al., 2000). In order to compare the predictions of 1