Prediction of acoustic radiation from axisymmetric surfaces with arbitrary boundary conditions using the boundary element method on a distributed computing system

Abstract

This paper presents a computational technique using the boundary element method for prediction of radiated acoustic waves from axisymmetric surfaces with nonaxisymmetric boundary conditions. The aim is to predict the far-field behavior of underwater acoustic transducers based on their measured behavior in the near-field. The technique is valid for all wavenumbers and uses a volume integral method to calculate the singular integrals required by the boundary element formulation. The technique has been implemented on a distributed computing system to take advantage of its parallel nature, which has led to significant reductions in the time required to generate results. Measurement data generated by a pair of free-flooding underwater acoustic transducers encapsulated in a polyurethane polymer have been used to validate the technique against experiment. The dimensions of the outer surface of the transducers (including the polymer coating) were an outer diameter of 98 mm with an 18 mm wall thickness and a length of 92 mm. The transducers were mounted coaxially, giving an overall length of 185 mm. The cylinders had resonance frequencies at 13.9 and 27.5 kHz, and the data were gathered at these frequencies.