Narrow Results

Addressed is the physics of sound propagation through a shallow water waveguide whose seabed has a random rough surface. The basic coupled integral equations for the modal amplitudes can be split into forward and backward going coupled integral equations. Numerical solutions of the coupled equations are obtained for multiple roughness realizations from which ensemble averages can be obtained for the modal intensities and cross-mode coherence as a function of range. Sample calculations illustrate some of the basic characteristics of the average cross-mode coherence and intensity with and without seabed attenuation and for different source depths on range scales of 1500 acoustic wavelengths.

The effects of rough sea surface on the long-range bottom reverberation in shallow seas are studied by the coupled mode reverberation theory. The scattering effect caused by irregular rough sea surface is described by couple coefficients. The decaying rules of long-range bottom reverberation level are simulated at different sea states, and the rough sea surface effect on the coherence of distant bottom reverberation is also discussed. It is indicated that irregular upper boundary has changed the propagation effect of the shallow water waveguide, and bottom reverberation, which is dominated among other kinds of reverberation in shallow water, is affected by the sea surface scattering as the increasing sea state. Compared with other literatures, the emphasis of this paper is to present the mechanism of rough sea surface scattering by describing the transfer of energy between different modes, and the details of energy transitions between different modes which are caused by sea surface scattering are presented for different sea states. With the increasing sea state, stronger mode coupling caused by surface scattering would affect the intensity and its space coherence of bottom reverberation obviously.

Reverberation level (RL) is modeled in a shallow water environment with an underwater sound channel and internal solitary wave (ISW) using the coupled mode method. Numerical RL result based on one-way coupled mode shows an abnormal increase when a source is located near the channel axis and the ISW is located far from the source. The abnormal increase is analyzed by using a two-mode approach (assuming a trapped mode and a bottom interacting mode). The two-mode approach explains the relation between the RL increase and the ISW location explicitly: the ISW transfers trapped mode energy to bottom interacting mode energy, and its increasing rate is a function of its modal attenuation and ISW location from the source. The sensitivity test according to several ISW parameters is also performed.