Air‐gun bubble damping by a screen

Abstract

A method for damping unwanted bubble oscillations from a seismic air gun is presented. The method exploits the fact that the primary pressure peak generated by an air gun is produced during the first 5–10 ms after firing. The air bubble is destroyed by mounting a perforated screen with an optimal radius about the gun. Once the primary pressure peak has been generated by the bubble, the bubble is destroyed by the screen, leading to a corresponding decrease in the measured pressure amplitude of the secondary bubble oscillations. Controlled near‐field measurements of 40‐cubic inch and 120‐cubic inch air guns with and without damping screens are used. The primary to bubble ratio improves from 1.4 without a screen to 4.4 with a screen in the near‐field. The corresponding values for estimated far‐field signatures are 1.8 to 9.0 when the signatures are filtered with an out‐128 Hz (72 dB/Oct) DFS V filter.