Regional soundscape modeling of the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelfa).

The ocean soundscape is a complex superposition of sound from natural and anthropogenic sources. Recent advances in acoustic remote sensing and marine bioacoustics have highlighted how animals use their soundscape and how the background sound levels are influenced by human activities. In this paper, developments in computational ocean acoustics, remote sensing, and oceanographic modeling are combined to generate modelled sound fields at multiple scales in time and space. Source mechanisms include surface shipping, surface wind, and wave fields. A basin scale model is presented and applied to the United States Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). For model-data comparison at a single hydrophone location, the model is run for a single receiver position. Environmental and source model uncertainty is included in the site-specific modeling of the soundscape. An inversion of the local sediment type is made for a set of sites in the OCS. After performing this inversion, the qualitative comparison of the modelled sound pressure level (SPL) time series and observed SPL is excellent. The quantitative differences in the mean root mean square error between the model and data is less than 3 dB for most sites and frequencies above 90 Hz.

Deep water towed array measurements at close range.

During the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory Philippine Sea 2009 experiment, towed array receptions were made from a towed source as the two ships transited from a separation of several Convergence Zones through a Closest Point of Approach at 3 km. A combination of narrowband tones and broadband pulses were transmitted covering the frequency band 79-535 Hz. The received energy arrives from two general paths-direct path and bottom bounce. Bearing-time records of the narrowband arrivals at times show a 35° spread in the angle of arrival of the bottom bounce energy. Doppler processing of the tones shows significant frequency spread of the bottom bounce energy. Two-dimensional modeling using measured bathymetry, a geoacoustic parameterization based upon the geological record, and measured sound-speed field was performed. Inclusion of the effects of seafloor roughness and surface waves shows that in-plane scattering from rough interfaces can explain much of the observed spread in the arrivals. Evidence of out-of-plane scattering does exist, however, at short ranges. The amount of out-of-plane scattering is best observed in the broadband impulse-beam response analysis, which in-plane surface roughness modeling cannot explain.

Estimating the horizontal and vertical direction-of-arrival of water-borne seismic signals in the northern Philippine Sea.

Conventional and adaptive plane-wave beamforming with simultaneous recordings by large-aperture horizontal and vertical line arrays during the 2009 Philippine Sea Engineering Test (PhilSea09) reveal the rate of occurrence and the two-dimensional arrival structure of seismic phases that couple into the deep ocean. A ship-deployed, controlled acoustic source was used to evaluate performance of the horizontal array for a range of beamformer adaptiveness levels. Ninety T-phases from unique azimuths were recorded between Yeardays 107 to 119. T-phase azimuth and S-minus-P-phase time-of-arrival range estimates were validated using United States Geological Survey seismic monitoring network data. Analysis of phases from a seismic event that occurred on Yearday 112 near the east coast of Taiwan approximately 450 km from the arrays revealed a 22° clockwise evolution of T-phase azimuth over 90 s. Two hypotheses to explain such evolution-body wave excitation of multiple sources or in-water scattering-are presented based on T-phase origin sites at the intersection of azimuthal great circle paths and ridge/coastal bathymetry. Propagation timing between the source, scattering region, and array position suggests the mechanism behind the evolution involved scattering of the T-phase from the Ryukyu Ridge and a T-phase formation/scattering location estimation error of approximately 3.2 km.

Comparison of hybrid three-dimensional modeling with measurements on the continental shelf.

During the CALOPS 2007 experiment, off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, three-dimensional (3D) multipath was observed using a bottom mounted horizontal line array during source tows along the 200 m isobath [Kevin D. Heaney and James J. Murray, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125(4), 1394-1402 (2008)]. In this paper a hybrid modeling approach is presented to model the 3D sound on the Florida shelf, nearly shaped like the canonical wedge. The hybrid approach combines vertical acoustic normal modes with the parabolic equation solution (in range/cross-range). The approach is shown to satisfy the 3D Cartesian-coordinate wave equation in the limit of adiabatic mode propagation. In the adiabatic mode parabolic equation (AMPE) approach modal phase speeds vs position are used as the input to the parabolic equation computation with dimensions of easting (km) and northing (km). Vertical adiabatic modes and horizontal rays are also computed to illustrate the 3D multipath arrival. The AMPE field is computed for all the modes for each element of the horizontal array. Beamforming vs source range is then conducted and excellent agreement with data is achieved.

Experimental Study on the Interlaminar Fracture Properties of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites with a Single Embedded Toughened Film.

In this study, two types of single polymer films have been inserted in a composite laminate to examine their toughening effects on mechanical properties. The first is a thermoplastic polyurethane (PU) film, and the second is an adhesive epoxy film featuring a polyester net. The laminates were manufactured either using a co-curing (CC) process or a secondary bonding (SB) process used for the epoxy film. Mode I and mode II interlaminar fracture toughness were measured for laminates manufactured by both processes and compared with the corresponding reference laminate toughness. A significant increase in both mode I and mode II toughness resulted when introducing a single PU film, approximately 290% and 50%, respectively. Similarly, the epoxy film improved the interlaminar fracture properties; the CC process produced an increase of 175% for mode II toughness, while the SB adhesive film showed an increase of 75% for mode II toughness.

Measurements of three-dimensional propagation in a continental shelf environment.

Although a significant amount of theoretical and numerical modeling effort has been put into the study of three-dimensional (3D) acoustic propagation on a coastal wedge, including the development of the ASA 3D benchmark problem set, there have been few observations of the predicted 3D propagation effects. Significant horizontal multipath arrivals were observed in a pair of acoustic transmission tests on the continental shelf off the east coast of Florida in September 2007 and February 2008. For many transmissions, arrivals were received coming from nearly the global positioning system (GPS) bearing of the ship, as well as up to 30 deg inshore of the true bearing. The inshore path was up to 25 dB stronger than the direct path in some cases. The experimental waveforms transmitted included continuous-wave transmissions ranging in frequency from 24 to 415 Hz as well as wideband linear frequency modulation pulses (20-420 Hz). Horizontal multipath arrivals were observed for source ranges from 10 to 80 km, source depths of 20 and 100 m, and along several different bearings (inshore and along the 250 m isobath). It is a conclusion of this paper that the bearing bias and multiple horizontal arrivals are the result of 3D propagation due to the local shoaling bathymetry.