Numerical simulation of wave propagation in ice-covered ocean environments based on the equivalent-source method

Abstract

Accurate modeling of sound propagation in ice-covered ocean environments can help with interpreting discrepancies between predictions and experimental observations in the changing Arctic Ocean; this is advantageous for environmental conservation, resource exploration, and naval applications. Building on the recent development of the equivalent-source (ES) method (ESM), herein, an ESM-based sub-ice model (ESM-SUBICE) is presented for wave propagation in an ice-covered ocean acoustic environment. The presented model solves exact governing equations for acoustic–elastic propagation in an ice-covered waveguide by expressing the wave solution in terms of a field superposition produced by several sets of ESs. Their unknown amplitudes are solved by strictly enforcing additional ice-layer boundary conditions. ESM-SUBICE achieves high efficiency using a water–seabed Green's function to automatically satisfy the boundary conditions at this interface. By further dividing the ocean environment into layers, ESM-SUBICE is extended for more general situations including stratified sound-speed structures and seabed range dependencies. ESM-SUBICE is benchmarked against a finite-element model, and it is found to produce high-quality solutions with high efficiency. Transmission-loss predictions for elastic, fluid, and free-surface ice representations in different ocean environments are compared to examine the effect of ice elasticity on propagation and scattering. The results suggest that the fluid representation is adequate for deep-water environments where the seabed is soft and the surface duct effect is insignificant; otherwise, for accurate predictions, the ice elasticity should be considered.