Influence of range-variable bathymetry and ocean sound speed on acoustic fields and acoustic arrivals in the New England Shelf Break environment

Abstract

"A two-part analysis of acoustic field sensitivity in the New England Shelf Break (NESB) region is proposed, with a goal of complementing the Task Force Ocean (TFO) experiment operating out of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The sensitivity analysis is divided into a normal mode approach, and an acoustic pulse propagation model. In the normal mode portion, the reduction of ocean features to range-dependent idealized vertical waveguides is used to assess sensitivity of acoustic metrics such as modal wavenumber and waveguide invariant to propagation through, near, or over fronts, internal waves, and slopes. Further, this portion is intended to classify oceanic features typical in the NESB region with regard to their relative acoustic influence to identify regions of interest for the TFO New England Shelf Break Acoustics experiment. Second, the acoustic pulse propagation will be implemented on graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware for massively parallelized high speed computations. This effort will aid in identifying the influence of ocean features on acoustic arrival times at receivers, and in source localization. Ultimately this research intends to quantify the nature of potential influence on active or passive sonar from common ocean environment properties, and to propose methods of accounting for this influence."

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Apr 29, 2020
Source ID
N000142012423

Entities

People

  • Brendan J DeCourcy

Organizations

  • Office of Naval Research
  • United States Navy
  • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Acoustical Oceanography.