Relationship between frictional sound pressure and grain size distribution of seafloor soil

Abstract

The exploration on seafloor soil is one of the first things to be carried out when the construction is planned and performed offshore. The data on the grain size distribution obtained by the exploration are imoportant to identify the mechanical properties of seafloor soil. In this paper an accoustic method to obtain the grain size distribution of seafloor soil is shown, where the ultrasonic transducers are used to acquire the frictional sound pressure generated between soil and sledge. Then, the empirical relationship between frictional sound pressure and grain size distribution is proposed. The grain size distribution is calculated by the empirical relation based on the assumption that the grain size distribution may be the logarithmic normal distribution.