Abstract
In this work, we investigated the influences of salinity, temperature, and hydrostatic pressure on the acoustics of seafloor surficial sediment by theoretically and experimentally analyzing the sound velocity ratio of the seafloor sediment to the bottom sea-water in typical environmental conditions. Temperature- and pressure-controlled experiments were conducted to examine the characteristics of the sound velocity ratio, the results of which agree with the theoretical analysis using the effective density fluid model. Of the three environmental factors considered, the sound velocity ratio was found to be sensitive to temperature and pressure but not to salinity, with the sound velocity ratio decreasing with temperature and hydrostatic pressure. With respect to surficial sediments, pore water plays a key role in the sound velocity ratio of sediment influenced by different environmental factors. The sound velocities of different types of sediments (sandy, silty, and clayey) change similarly with temperature, but change slightly differently with hydrostatic pressure. The influence of environmental factors on the sound velocity ratio of seafloor sediment is independent of the detection frequency. The results show that the sound velocity ratio can change up to 0.0008 per °C when the temperature ranges from 2°C to 25°C and up to 0.00064 MPa−1 when the seawater depth pressure ranges from 0 MPa to 40 MPa.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41676055 and 41776043), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2019A1515011055), and the Foundation of Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (No. MGQNLM-KF201805). The authors wish to thank the staff at Guangdong University of Technology, the First Institute of Oceanography of Ministry of Natural Resources, and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology of Chinese Academy of Sciences for performing measurements, conducting experiments, analyzing the datasets, and discussing the findings for this research. The authors also wish to thank the reviewers and Pro. Guoliang Ye for providing so much valuable advice regarding this paper.
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Zou, D., Zeng, Z., Kan, G. et al. Influence of Environmental Conditions on the Sound Velocity Ratio of Seafloor Surficial Sediment. J. Ocean Univ. China 20, 573–580 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-021-4628-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-021-4628-0