Leaky helical flexural wave backscattering contributions from tilted water-filled cylindrical shells.

Helical flexural waves on a bluntly truncated tilted water-filled cylindrical steel shell in water are found to give large contributions to the backscattering above the coincidence frequency. The presence of the water inside the shell increases the damping of the leaky wave when short tone bursts are used. The magnitude of the scattering is found by modifying a ray analysis developed for empty shells. When longer bursts are used, some of the internally radiated energy (corresponding to the case of one internal chord) is superposed on the ordinary helical ray backscattering. This occurs as a consequence of the internal excitation of helical rays.