Acoustic Path Research Articles

Ultra-thin low-frequency broadband absorber based on layered coiled channel structure

To improve and broaden the performance in absorbing sound waves of metamaterials at the lower and mid-frequency ranges, a layered coiled channel composite structure (LCCS) with deep subwavelengths is proposed in this paper, which extends the acoustic wave propagation paths longitudinally by connecting the Helmholtz resonator channels in each layer and achieves the multistep resonance of the coupling cavities, which results in the cancellation of acoustic energies, reduces the acoustic reflections and scattering, and enhances the absorption performance. A model to simulate theoretical sound absorption and finite elements simulation of the metamaterial were evolved to reveal its potential mechanismfor absorbing sound. Using the single-variable method to study the impact of altering structural parameters on the effectiveness of sound absorption, it shows good tunability in the target frequency range and obtains four fundamental unit LCCSs having distinct frequency absorption peaks, and designs a multi-unit coupling construction having low frequencies wideband sound absorption performance by connecting them in parallel to realize a large-broadband continuous and high-efficiency sound absorption within the scope of 370–1400 Hz, using a mean peak sound absorption value higher than 0.7. The structure was put together by 3D printing, and the impedance tube method test verified the precision of the simulation’s findings. This study offers a practical means to create lightweight, low-frequency broadband acoustic absorbing metamaterials.

Study on Depth Estimation and Characteristic Analysis of Underwater Source Based on Deep-Sea Broadband Signal Modeling

Studies on estimating the underwater sound source localization using acoustic signal characteristics have mainly been conducted in shallow waters. Recently, technologies for stably and efficiently estimating the underwater sound sources localization using the underwater sound propagation characteristics of the Reliable Acoustic Path(RAP) in deep water areas are being studied. Underwater surveillance technology in deep sea areas is known to have the advantage of having low detection performance variability due to time-varying underwater environments and having a small shadow zone, making it easy to stably detect underwater sound sources and estimate location even from relatively long distance. In this study, we analyzed the sound propagation characteristics based on the actual marine environment in the deep sea of the Korean Peninsula and conducted a study to analyze the estimation performance of sound source depth using the broadband interference pattern of direct wave and sea surface reflected waves radiating from underwater sound sources.

Bifunctional acoustic lossy coupler for broadband power splitting and absorption

In this work, we propose a bifunctional acoustic lossy coupler for broadband power splitting and absorption. Following the three-level system in quantum physics, the three-waveguide (WG) acoustic system is proposed to obtain efficient energy transfer behaviors. Given the agreement in form between Schr o¨ dinger equation and coupled mode equation, the time-dependent external fields are mapped into space-varying coupling actions between adjacent WGs. The propagation paths of the incident waves can be predicted by Schr o¨ dinger-like equation, which are verified by numerical simulations and experimental measurements. Owing to the different responses to lossy medium in WG B for WG A incidence and WG C incidence, the acoustic coupler can be considered as a broadband power splitter and muffler by selecting different input ports. Meanwhile, according to the reversibility of acoustic path, a switchable acoustic logic gate with functions of “OR” and “XOR” is constructed as well by taking advantage of the lossless adiabatic coupler, and the function can be controlled conveniently by reversing the phase of input waves from WG A or C. Our work provides a new scheme for the design of bifunctional acoustic coupler, which may have a profound impact on the development of non-resonance acoustic high-performance devices.

Multi-angle speed-of-sound imaging with sparse sampling to characterize medical tissue properties

Medical Speed-of-sound (SoS) imaging, which can characterize medical tissue properties better by quantifying their different SoS, is an effective imaging method compared with conventional B-mode ultrasound imaging. As a commonly used diagnostic instrument, a hand-held array probe features convenient and quick inspection. However, artifacts will occur in the single-angle SoS imaging, resulting in indistinguishable tissue boundaries. In order to build a high-quality SoS image, a number of raw data are needed, which will bring difficulties to data storage and processing. Compressed sensing (CS) theory offers theoretical support to the feasibility that a sparse signal can be rebuilt with random but less sampling data. In this study, we proposed an SoS reconstruction method based on CS theory to process signals obtained from a hand-held linear array probe with a passive reflector positioned on the opposite side. The SoS reconstruction method consists of three parts. Firstly, a sparse transform basis is selected appropriately for a sparse representation of the original signal. Then, considering the mathematical principles of SoS imaging, the ray-length matrix is used as a sparse measurement matrix to observe the original signal, which represents the length of the acoustic propagation path. Finally, the orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm is introduced for image reconstruction. The experimental result of the phantom proves that SoS imaging can clearly distinguish tissues that show similar echogenicity in B-mode ultrasound imaging. The simulation and experimental results show that our proposed method holds promising potential for reconstructing precision SoS images with fewer signal samplings, transmission, and storage.

Investigation of noise characteristics of electric vibrator utilizing acoustic camera and transfer path analysis

Abstract Mechanical equipment operation frequently results in noise generation, which can raise concerns regarding quality and safety. This study focuses on electric vibrators, essential electromechanical systems, with the goal of identifying the source and transfer path of noise. To achieve this objective, an acoustic camera positioning analysis was performed to approximate the distribution and characteristics of the noise. Building upon this foundation, a thorough evaluation of the transfer path and noise contribution was conducted. Subsequently, targeted noise suppression methods were implemented based on the properties of the noise. Primary noise sources were observed to be classified into wind turbulence and mechanical vibration based on operating conditions. Time-frequency analysis revealed the presence of low-frequency signals (around 50 Hz) and intermediate-frequency signals (around the resonant frequency), corresponding to wind-induced and mechanical response noise, respectively. Leveraging the characteristics of the noise and its transfer path, passive methods (Sound-absorbing rubber and Soundproof cotton) and active method (FxLMS algorithm) were employed. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of noise mechanisms and provide insights for noise emission strategies.

DRR-based acoustic detection model for estimating room shape

An acoustic detection model based on the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio (DRR) is proposed to estimate room shape with audible sound. Besides the direct propagation, the first-order reflection is considered in the calculation of the DRR in this work. Thus, the direct-to-reflected acoustic path ratio is estimated in the proposed model to compute the reflection point, which is used to calculate the pose estimate of the reflector. The mapping of the proposed model is completed by fusing the pose estimates of walls with the spatio-temporal diversity. An initialization process is developed to obtain the initial value of the detection model. An acquisition system working under audible frequencies is built. The experimental results show that even with a low signal-to-diffuse noise ratio (−10 dB), the error of the proposed method is still less than 0.5 degrees in angle and 0.03 m in distance, demonstrating the robustness of the proposed model under the environment with multipath reflections.

M-estimate based diffusion active noise control algorithm over distributed networks and its performance analysis

Multi-channel active noise control (ANC) systems can achieve effective attenuation of low-frequency noise in spatial areas and have been extensively studied. Recent works have focused on the application of multitask diffusion strategies in ANC systems based on wireless acoustic sensor and actuator networks (WASAN), which show the advantages of saving computational burden and enhancing flexibility. However, these works all adopt the mean-square error minimization as the optimization criterion, which leads to severe performance degradation in the presence of impulsive noise interference. Therefore, in this paper, we exploit the M-estimate function and the augmented weight vector of the control filter to formulate a robust minimization problem and propose a distributed augmented diffusion filtered-x least mean M-estimate (DADFxLMM) algorithm for multi-channel ANC systems. The proposed algorithm leverages the M-estimate function to overcome the influence of outliers in the error signal and achieves robustness against impulsive noise, and also eliminates the dependence on the symmetry of the acoustic paths by integrating the augmented weight vectors. Moreover, we replace the score function with the update probability of the weight vector to avoid the need for integration and Price’s theorem, and analyze the mean and mean-square performance of the proposed DADFxLMM algorithm under the contaminated Gaussian (CG) noise model. Simulation results under different system configurations demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing multi-channel ANC algorithms in the presence of impulsive noise interference.

Physics Constrained High-Precision Data-Driven Modeling for Multi-Path Ultrasonic Flow Meter in Natural Gas Measurement.

Ultrasonic flow meters are crucial measuring instruments in natural gas transportation pipeline scenarios. The collected flow velocity data, along with the operational conditions data, are vital for the analysis of the metering performance of ultrasonic flow meters and analysis of the flow process. In practical applications, high requirements are placed on the modeling accuracy of ultrasonic flow meters. In response, this paper proposes an ultrasonic flow meter modeling method based on a combination of data learning and industrial physics knowledge. This paper builds ultrasonic flow meter flow velocity prediction models under different working conditions, combining pipeline flow field velocity distribution knowledge for data preprocessing and loss function design. By making full use of the characteristics of the physics and data learning, the prediction results are close to the real acoustic path flow velocity distribution; thus, the model has high accuracy and interpretability. Experiments are conducted to prove that the prediction error of the proposed method can be controlled within 1%, which can meet the needs of ultrasonic flow meter modeling and subsequent performance analysis in actual production.

Absorption–diffusion integrated acoustic metasurface for scattering reduction

Absorption and diffusion are expected to reduce the energy intensity of reflected waves, while combining the advantages of both can further disperse incoming energy and improve acoustic stealth performances. In the paper, an absorption-diffusion integrated acoustic metasurface (ADM) is proposed, achieving high-performance acoustic backward scattering reduction in the operating bandwidth ranging from 6550 Hz to 6950 Hz. In order to obtain the proposed ADM, two kinds of subwavelength dual-layer unit cells with phase differences of 180° and low amplitudes (<0.4) are introduced. The highly efficient absorption of acoustic waves is achieved by extending the acoustic wave propagation path of the proposed unit cells. Meanwhile, the destructive interference between the pre-designed unit cells also contributes to diffusion-like scattering, which contributes to further suppression of specular reflection. Both simulated and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed ADM can achieve excellent acoustic backward scattering reduction. The proposed integrated mechanism can provide a method for achieving high-performance acoustic wavefront manipulation, which has potential applications in stealth technology, camouflage, noise control, and other relevant applications.

Application of fluctuations in the sound field in inversion of internal solitary wave phase speed

Internal solitary waves propagation perturbing the sound velocity field, causes fluctuations in the sound field. This paper proposes to process the sound pressure data by the Product of the Slope and the even square of the Difference between two points of the acoustic parameter-time curve (PSD). The PSD processed data are processed to time-frequency analysis to extract the frequencies of the fluctuations in sound field. In this paper, numerical simulations and laboratory experiments are carried out on the process of internal solitary wave propagation in the sound field, and the characteristics of the sound field perturbation by internal solitary waves of different amplitudes are investigated. Results are both showing that the method can extract the dominant frequency of fluctuations in the sound field caused by internal solitary waves in real conditions. The method can be applied to the inversion of internal solitary wave phase speed which related to other parameters such as amplitude and characteristic width by theory. It is anticipated that this method can help realize the monitoring of internal solitary waves using acoustic paths.

Identification of unknown dynamic system as a way to determine the transient characteristic of the inverse acoustic path

Identification of unknown dynamic system as a way to determine the transient characteristic of the inverse acoustic path

TOFD detection of shallow subsurface defects in aluminum alloy thin plates by half-skip mode-converted wave

Aluminum alloy is widely applied to the aerospace field. However, the inspection of thin plates using Time-of-Flight Diffraction (TOFD) technique is restricted by the near-surface dead zone because of the coupling between diffracted longitudinal wave and lateral wave. The half-skip mode-converted wave is introduced to decrease dead zone and detect defects in aluminum alloy thin plates by increasing ray path and propagation time. The quantitative correlation for the diffracted shear wave from longitudinal back-wall wave is deduced in combination with the acoustic path, realizing the accurate location of shallow subsurface defects. Simulated and experimental results indicate that the dead zone is decreased by 38% by the half-skip mode-converted wave, and the location errors are within 5% for the aluminum alloy plate with a thickness of 7.0 mm. Compared to other alternative TOFD techniques, half-skip mode-converted wave has better response amplitude and positioning accuracy, demonstrating strong applicability in TOFD inspection of thin plates.

Measured Regional Division Optimization for Acoustic Tomography Velocity Field Reconstruction in a Circular Area.

The acoustic tomography (AT) velocity field reconstruction technique has become a research hotspot in recent years due to its noninvasive nature, high accuracy, and real-time measurement advantages. However, most of the existing studies are limited to the reconstruction of the velocity field in a rectangular area, and there are very few studies on a circular area, mainly because the layout of acoustic transducers, selection of acoustic paths, and division of measured regions are more difficult in a circular area than in a rectangular area. Therefore, based on AT and using the reconstruction algorithm of the Markov function and singular value decomposition (MK-SVD), this paper proposes a measured regional division optimization algorithm for velocity field reconstruction in a circular area. First, an acoustic path distribution based on the multipath effect is designed to solve the problem of the limited emission angle of the acoustic transducer. On this basis, this paper proposes an adaptive optimization algorithm for measurement area division based on multiple sub-objectives. The steps are as follows: first, two optimization objectives, the condition number of coefficient matrix and the uniformity of acoustic path distribution, were designed. Then, the weights of each sub-objective are calculated using the coefficient of variation (CV). Finally, the measured regional division is optimized based on particle swarm optimization (PSO). The reconstruction effect of the algorithm and the anti-interference ability are verified through the reconstruction experiments of the model velocity field and the simulated velocity field.

Theoretical and experimental study of attenuation in cancellous bone.

Photoacoustic (PA) technology shows great potential for bone assessment. However, the PA signals in cancellous bone are complex due to its complex composition and porous structure, making such signals challenging to apply directly in bone analysis. We introduce a photoacoustic differential attenuation spectrum (PA-DAS) method to separate the contribution of the acoustic propagation path to the PA signal from that of the source, and theoretically and experimentally investigate the propagation attenuation characteristics of cancellous bone. We modified Biot's theory by accounting for the high frequency and viscosity. In parallel with the rabbit osteoporosis model, we build an experimental PA-DAS system featuring an eccentric excitation differential detection mechanism. Moreover, we extract a PA-DAS quantization parameter-slope-to quantify the attenuation of high- and low-frequency components. The results show that the porosity of cancellous bone can be evaluated by fast longitude wave attenuation at different frequencies and the PA-DAS slope of the osteoporotic group is significantly lower compared with the normal group (**). Findings demonstrate that PA-DAS effectively differentiates osteoporotic bone from healthy bone, facilitating quantitative assessment of bone mineral density, and osteoporosis diagnosis.

Measurement the 3D temperature distribution in the combustion zone using acoustic tomography and nolinear wavefont tracing

A non-invasive temperature measurement method in three dimensions is proposed to reconstruct the three-dimensional temperature. It relies on the use of nonlinear acoustic travel-time tomography, which incorporates acoustic path tracing, Gaussian kernel function, and modified Tikhonov regularization. Sound signals can be distorted due to large average temperature gradients and oscillatory release of heat in the combustion region. The effective acoustic signal is extracted based on spectral subtraction to evaluate the sound propagation time under distorted signals. The analysis of experimental errors indicates that the proposed acoustic pyrometry method has an average relative error of less than 15% compared to the time-averaged temperature measured by thermocouples. This result verifies the efficacy of the method when it comes to accurately reconstructing the temperature field in the combustion area. The reduction in error is attributed to the consideration of acoustic ray tracing within the proposed method.

Sound intensity fluctuations caused by internal solitary wave train in the South China Sea

Dynamic internal solitary wave (ISW) can cause significant underwater sound fluctuations. In this paper, the periodic characteristics of sound intensity fluctuations and related physical mechanisms are investigated in the scenario that an ISW train passing through the acoustic path from source to receivers. From simulation results and experimental data, it is shown that the sound intensity fluctuates quasi-periodically, and the predominant fluctuation frequency is associated with modal interference and modal intensity. The initial mode coefficients at the source and the mode coupling are responsible for the fluctuations of modal intensities, and one of the predominant fluctuation periods is the same as that of the ISWs.

Analysis of mid-frequency sound intensity fluctuations on the Washington shelf

A joint Oceanography/Acoustics experiment was conducted 15 July–13 August 2022 in Washington’s shallow coastal shelf waters to investigate mid-frequency sound intensity fluctuations and the oceanographic mechanisms driving them. Acoustic pulses centered at 3.5 kHz and 6 kHz were transmitted up-shelf from a stationary source and recorded by receivers on two moorings at 10 km and 20 km ranges. A ship-towed profiler, the Shallow Water Integrated Mapping System (SWIMS), repeatedly sampled the ocean between the source and receiver moorings, providing sound speed measurements as a function of range, depth, and time. In addition, five oceanographic moorings distributed along the acoustic path took additional ocean data over time. A roughly 15- dB ping-to-ping TL variability and scintillation index of near unity are found at the 20 km range. The intensity data show strong correlation between pings separated by a few minutes, beyond which it is uncorrelated. After smoothing, they also show trends at roughly 12-hour intervals. Assisted by environmental data and numerical modeling, the oceanographic mechanisms for these observed fluctuations are investigated. Implications for signal processing in the presence of such intensity fluctuations are also discussed. (Work supported by Office of Naval Research.)

Controls on the acoustic expression of buried and surface chemical explosions

Surface and buried chemical explosions in the 1-50 ton TNT equivalent range can generate acoustic waves capable of traveling thousands of kilometers. Planned explosive campaigns in this size range have been used to develop acoustics-based yield determination techniques, investigate how acoustic propagation paths vary over short time scales, and examine how ground motion induces sound above the epicenter, among others. Here, we describe several test campaigns involving buried and surface chemical explosions. We discuss the combinations of explosive yield and burial depth that produce laterally propagating infrasound waves, as well as instances where diffuse sound from violent topographic shaking is observed. We also give an overview of a test series specifically aimed at investigating acoustic signal variation at tens to hundreds of kilometers range using co-located surface explosions fired tens of seconds apart. This will provide context for acoustic data interpretation from existing test series and aid in the design of future ones. [SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA Contract No. DE-NA0003525.]

Universal Sea/Fem Based Method for Estimation of Vibroacoustic Coupling Loss Factors in Realistic Ship Structures

Abstract Despite the fact that there is an existing body of literature addressing the computation of Coupling Loss Factors (CLFs) via the Finite Element Method (FEM), no publications have sufficiently taken into account real structural joints in their approach. Previous research has focused on academic cases of trivial connections, rarely involving more than two steel plates. To enable Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) on a real ship, a methodology for determining CLFs for non-trivial systems is proposed, considering realistic boundary conditions and irregularities that can occur in marine structures. Based on the method, a library of CLFs is created by selecting the tested connections to enable modelling of about 90% of the acoustic paths on an existing jack-up vessel. Boundary conditions were set by introducing spring elements with a stiffness calibrated to the type of connection and taking the adjacent structure into account. In previous works, CLFs were determined for basic connections of rectangular plates. The lack of scantling variations, ignoring discontinuities and only defining parallel edges in the considered models, lead to the overestimation of energy transmission in real structures. To consider the influence of the above, random deviations from the initial stiffness of the springs at individual edges and point restraints at random points are introduced in this paper.

Broadband acoustic bend composed of homogeneous curved waveguides in quasi-two-dimensional space

By exploring equivalent acoustic path length between inhomogeneous medium and homogenous curved geometry, we present a broadband acoustic bend composed of homogeneous curved waveguides in quasi-two-dimensional space. Simultaneous control of the wavefront and phase accumulation of acoustic waves is achieved by designing the embedding geometry of homogeneous curved waveguides with subwavelength ports, guaranteeing both the bending effect and extremely high transmission. Unlike metamaterials-based wave bends, homogeneous curved waveguides, filled with background air, exhibit promising broadband properties. Moreover, we propose a broadband acoustic splitter by mirroring the acoustic bend. Simulation results demonstrate functionalities of our designs.