PH4455 Sound Propagation in the Ocean

An advanced treatment of the subject. Topics include: reflection of spherical waves from ocean boundaries; normal mode propagation of sound; inhomogeneous wave equation and the point source in cylindrical coordinates; shallow water channel with fluid and solid bottoms; the deep sound channel and the WKB approximation; range-dependent channels; adiabatic normal modes and the parabolic equation; multi-path propagation; application to matched field processing and source localization.

Prerequisite

PH3452 or consent of instructor

Lecture Hours

4

Lab Hours

0

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, a student will be able to:

• Calculate plane-wave reflection coefficient at a fluid-solid interface and from a set of fluid layers;
• Calculate the wave field, including head waves, at reflection of a spherical sound wave from a fluid-fluid or fluid-solid interface;
• Obtain the normal-mode and ray-theoretical solutions of the acoustic wave equations in shallow and deep water;
• Assess the sensitivity of various acoustic observables to variations and uncertainties in the environmental parameters;
• Assess significance of horizontal refraction and 3-D effects in typical propagation scenarios;
• Evaluate and interpret various underwater propagation phenomena;
• Compute basic solutions to the acoustic wave equation in the narrow- and wide-angle parabolic approximations;
• Identify the limitations of different numerical prediction algorithms.