Horizontal refraction and diffraction of underwater sound around an island.

The three-dimensional (3D) propagation effects of horizontal refraction and diffraction were measured on a tetrahedral hydrophone array deployed near the coast of Block Island, RI. Linear frequency modulated chirp signals, centered at 1 kHz with a 400 Hz bandwidth, were transmitted from a ship moving out of the acoustic shadow zone blocked by the island from the perspective of the hydrophone array. The observed shadow zone boundary was consistent with the prediction made by a 3D sound propagation model incorporating high-resolution bathymetry and realistic sound speed obtained from a data-assimilated regional ocean model.

Characterization of impact pile driving signals during installation of offshore wind turbine foundations.

Impact pile driving creates intense, impulsive sound that radiates into the surrounding environment. Piles driven vertically into the seabed generate an azimuthally symmetric underwater sound field whereas piles driven on an angle will generate an azimuthally dependent sound field. Measurements were made during pile driving of raked piles to secure jacket foundation structures to the seabed in waters off the northeastern coast of the U.

Underwater acoustic energy fluctuations during strong internal wave activity using a three-dimensional parabolic equation model.

The three-dimensional Monterey-Miami parabolic equation model is used to simulate a nonlinear internal wave (NIW) crossing the sound field in a shallow water environment. The impetus for this research stems from acoustic measurements taken during the Shallow Water '06 (SW06) field experiment, where a NIW traversed the water column such that soliton wavecrests were nearly parallel to the source-receiver path. Horizontal refraction effects are important in this scenario.

A three-dimensional underwater sound propagation model for offshore wind farm noise prediction.

A three-dimensional underwater sound propagation model with realistic ocean environmental conditions has been created for assessing the impacts of noise from offshore wind farm construction and operation. This model utilizes an existing accurate numerical solution scheme to solve the three-dimensional Helmholtz wave equation, and it is compared and validated with acoustic transmission data between 750 and 1250 Hz collected during the development of the Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF), Rhode Island. The variability of underwater sound propagation conditions has been investigated in the BIWF area on a temporal scale of months and a spatial scale of kilometers.

Geoacoustic inversion on the New England Mud Patch using warping and dispersion curves of high-order modes.

This paper presents single receiver geoacoustic inversion of a combustive sound source signal, recorded during the 2017 Seabed Characterization Experiment on the New England Mud Patch, in an area where water depth is around 70 m. There are two important features in this study. First, it is shown that high-order modes can be resolved and estimated using warping (up to mode number 18 over the frequency band 20-440 Hz).

Investigation of horizontal refraction on Florida Straits continental shelf using a three-dimensional Gaussian ray bundling model.

Acoustic transmission loss measurements from the calibration operations (CALOPS) experiment for the Shallow Water Array Performance (SWAP) program included horizontally refracted returns that were as much as 30° away from the true bearing between source and receiver. In many cases, the in-shore refracted path was 20 dB stronger than the true bearing path. In this study CALOPS transmission loss measurements at 415 Hz are compared to predictions from a three-dimensional Gaussian ray bundling model.

Geoacoustic inversion in shallow tropical waters for a silty and sandy seabed.

Seabed parameters are inverted from ambient noise measurements at two shallow tropical environments with dissimilar seabed characteristics, a silty and a sandy seabed, using an approach that matches the measured and modeled complex vertical coherence. Coherence is modeled using the Green's function output from the model oases, along with theoretical formulation, for a range independent environment. Genetic algorithm is used to search the model parameter space consisting of sound speed, density, and attenuation in the sediment layers and half-space.

Pile-Driving Pressure and Particle Velocity at the Seabed: Quantifying Effects on Crustaceans and Groundfish.

We modeled the effects of pile driving on crustaceans, groundfish, and other animals near the seafloor. Three different waves were investigated, including the compressional wave, shear wave, and interface wave. A finite element (FE) technique was employed in and around the pile, whereas a parabolic equation (PE) code was used to predict propagation at long ranges from the pile.

Ambient habitat noise and vibration at the Georgia Aquarium.

Underwater and in-air noise evaluations were completed in performance pool systems at Georgia Aquarium under normal operating conditions and with performance sound tracks playing. Ambient sound pressure levels at in-pool locations, with corresponding vibration measures from life support system (LSS) pumps, were measured in operating configurations, from shut down to full operation. Results indicate noise levels in the low frequency ranges below 100 Hz were the highest produced by the LSS relative to species hearing thresholds.

Geoacoustic inversion using combustive sound source signals.

Combustive sound source (CSS) data collected on single hydrophone receiving units, in water depths ranging from 65 to 110 m, during the Shallow Water 2006 experiment clearly show modal dispersion effects and are suitable for modal geoacoustic inversions. CSS shots were set off at 26 m depth in 100 m of water. The inversions performed are based on an iterative scheme using dispersion-based short time Fourier transform in which each time-frequency tiling is adaptively rotated in the time-frequency plane, depending on the local wave dispersion.

Inversion for sediment geoacoustic properties at the New England Bight.

This article discusses inversions for bottom geoacoustic properties using broadband acoustic signals obtained from explosive sources. Two different inversion schemes for estimating the compressional wave speeds and attenuation are presented in this paper. In addition to these sediment parameters, source-receiver range is also estimated using the arrival time data.

Tomographic inversion for sediment parameters in shallow water.

This article discusses inversions for bottom geoacoustic properties using broadband acoustic signals obtained from explosive sources. The experimental data used for the inversions are SUS charge explosions acquired on a vertical hydrophone array during the Shelf Break Primer Experiment conducted south of New England in the Middle Atlantic Bight in August 1996. The SUS signals were analyzed for their time-frequency behavior using wavelets.