Acoustic Waves, Propagation

Synonyms

Acoustic propagation; Sound waves propagation

Definition

Propagation. Concerns acoustical wave transmission inside a solid, liquid, or gaseous physical medium without material entrainment.

Introduction

After a very simple description of acoustical geometric propagation and plane wave assumption at large distance from sources, we shall speak about acoustic absorption by the medium as a function of frequencies and medium parameters. Then we shall present Doppler shift, which is very fundamental for remote sensing techniques. We shall be in a position to discuss sound propagation in a stratified media having some mean properties variation as a function of distance of acoustic sources or receivers. This last question is very important for atmosphere and ocean remote sensing where acoustic ray tracing has to be performed to know how acoustic waves propagate and from what kind of target an acoustic signal comes.

Wave propagation

If a pure sound corresponds to a sinusoidal wave, a...