Comparisons of laboratory scale measurements of three-dimensional acoustic propagation with solutions by a parabolic equation model.

In this paper, laboratory scale measurements of long range across-slope acoustic propagation in a three-dimensional (3-D) wedge-like environment are compared to numerical solutions. In a previous work, it was shown that the experimental data contain strong 3-D effects like mode shadow zones and multiple mode arrivals, in qualitative agreement with theoretical and numerical predictions. In the present work, the experimental data are compared with numerical solutions obtained using a fully 3-D parabolic equation based model. A subspace inversion approach is used for the refinement of some of the parameters describing the model experiment. The inversion procedure is implemented in a Bayesian framework based on the exhaustive search over the parameter space. The comparisons are performed both in the time and in the frequency domain using the maximum a posteriori estimates of the refined parameters as input in the 3-D model. A very good quantitative agreement is achieved between the numerical predictions provided by the 3-D parabolic equation model and the experimental data.

Scaled model experiment of long-range across-slope pulse propagation in a penetrable wedge.

In this paper, laboratory scale measurements of long-range across-slope propagation of broadband pulses in a shallow-water wedge-shaped environment with a sandy bottom are reported. The scaled model was designed to study the three-dimensional (3D) acoustic field in the presence of only a few propagating modes. The recorded time series exhibit prominent 3D effects such as mode shadow zones and multiple mode arrivals. Inspection of the spectral content of the time signals gives evidence of intra-mode interference and frequency dependence of the mode cut-off range in the across-slope direction.