Pressure and Displacement Sensors used simultaneously in Underwater Sonar

Abstract

UNDERWATER sound waves are often thought of primarily as pressure waves. But a full description of any time-alternating hydrodynamic disturbance must also include a specification of the vector field of particle displacement, or its time-derivative, as well as the scalar pressure field. This, coupled with the fact that some marine animals are known to possess both pressure-sensitive and displacement-sensitive organs, leads to a theoretical consideration of any parameters of an acoustic field which could be used by an animal to obtain clues about its environment.