Sound Waves

Abstract

Sound waves play an important role for the transmission of information in the ocean. This property is used in various measurement methods, such as, e. g. echo-sounding, acoustic floats, ADCP’s, and acoustic tomography. As will become clear below, the mathematical description of sound waves is relatively simple in comparison with other types of waves. Therefore, some of the concepts which are useful for describing all wave processes, such as, e. g. plane wave propagation, dispersion and group velocity, propagation in waveguides and in inhomogeneous media, can be introduced most easily for sound waves.