Near-field acoustic intensity measurements using an accelerometer-based underwater intensity vector sensor

Abstract

An accelerometer-based underwater acoustic intensity vector sensor is used to measure the acoustic nearfield of a single spherical source, and a pair of sources that vibrate in or out of phase with each other. The intensity sensor consists of co-located pressure and inertial sensors within a neutrally buoyant probe body. The design of this probe has been published previously. The measurements were performed in a large tank at a frequency of 5 kHz for two sources of different sizes, corresponding to ka values of 0.7 and 1.2 respectively, where k is acoustic wavenumber and a is the source radius. By way of validation, the acoustic intensity field from two closely spaced, interacting spherical radiators is predicted using the exact theory of the translational addition theorem for spherical wave functions. The predictions using this theory compare favorably well with the measured intensity field. Beam pattern and calibration data obtained for the intensity sensor suggest that underwater acoustic intensity generated by simple and complex sources can be measured to an accuracy of ±1 dB provided that ka is less than approximately 0.2.