Applied Underwater Acoustics

8.3. Acoustics of Sediments

Propagation of sound in sediments is an active field of research. The three particular models that have received wide use are described here. In increasing order of complexity these are the fluid, elastic, and poroelastic models.

8.3.1. Fluid Model

Derivations of the equations for the fluid model can be found in Refs. [10–12]. This model is appropriate for clayey and silty sediments, although it is often applied to sands as well. Propagation is described by the Helmholtz equation for pressure,

∇2p+ω2cp2p=0.

(8.1)

The pressure units may be chosen for convenience, for example, pascal or micro pascal. It is assumed that pressure ...