Damped Wavefield Research Articles

Parameter Analysis on Sound Radiation of Radial Tire

A theoretical model was studied to describe the sound radiation created by surface vibration of in-service tires. The tire is modeled as a circular ring model. The effects of normalized frequency and the structural loss factor are included. The radiation sound power is calculated as a function of the normalized frequency and the structural loss factor though numerical integration of the sound pressure. The basic sound radiation mechanism is shown to be a damped progressive wave field on the structure in the vicinity of the applied force. The result indicates that the potential sound reduction might be obtained if the values of the normalize frequency and structural loss factor are investigated.

Bayesian Seismic Azimuth-Difference Inversion of Horizontal Transversely Isotropic Media for Low-Frequency Component of Fracture Weaknesses in Laplace-Fourier Domain

Fracture weakness is one of the most important anisotropic parameters used to characterize the fractures and identify the fluids. The model of horizontal transversely isotropic (HTI) medium is usually utilized in seismic azimuthal inversion for the fracture weaknesses. Low-frequency component of fracture weaknesses plays a significant role in seismic fracture characterization and fluid identification due to the deficiency of low-frequency component in acquired seismic azimuthal data. The commonly used approaches to estimate low-frequency component include the smoothing model constraints and the damped wave field in complex-frequency domain. Following the Bayesian framework, we propose a novel approach used for compensating the low-frequency component of fracture weaknesses in Laplace-Fourier domain. Firstly, we reconstruct the seismic forward solver in Laplace-Fourier domain to obtain the low-frequency component of fracture weaknesses. Then, we propose a method of seismic azimuth-difference inversion for fracture weaknesses in Laplace-Fourier domain in a Bayesian framework. Finally, both synthetic and field data examples are used to demonstrate the superiority and stability of the proposed inversion approach. Compared with the conventional inversion approach, the proposed approach can reduce the dependence on the initial model of model parameters and weaken the effect of missing low-frequency components of fracture weaknesses in azimuthal seismic data, and it may help to improve the inversion accuracy of fracture weaknesses and reduce the uncertainty of inversion results.

Broadband Seismic Inversion for Low-Frequency Component of the Model Parameter

Seismic inversion is an important approach in parameters estimation in the fields of geosciences. The low-frequency component of the model parameter plays an important role in seismic inversion. The emergence of broadband seismic data acquisition and processing technologies is pushing the attention of the low frequency to a new level. With the review of the research status of the estimation of the low-frequency models in history and the low-frequency component contained in the complex frequency domain, a novel broadband seismic Bayesian inversion approach in the complex frequency domain is proposed to implement the estimation of the low-frequency component of the model parameter. The proposed approach makes full use of the advantage of broadband seismic data and the low-frequency component of the damped wave fields in the complex frequency domain. The kernel function of the proposed inversion approach is built with Bayesian inference. Synthetic examples demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of the proposed inversion approach in the estimation of the low-frequency component of the model parameter. A field data example verifies the feasibility and reasonability of the proposed inversion approach in application. Finally, the estimated low-frequency component of the model parameter is utilized as the initial model for the suggested seismic Bayesian inversion method in time domain. Model and field data examples further verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed inversion method in the final estimation of the model parameter by comparing with the conventional inversion approach.

Refraction traveltime tomography based on damped wave equation for irregular topographic model

Land seismic data generally have time-static issues due to irregular topography and weathered layers at shallow depths. Unless the time static is handled appropriately, interpretation of the subsurface structures can be easily distorted. Therefore, static corrections are commonly applied to land seismic data. The near-surface velocity, which is required for static corrections, can be inferred from first-arrival traveltime tomography, which must consider the irregular topography, as the land seismic data are generally obtained in irregular topography.This paper proposes a refraction traveltime tomography technique that is applicable to an irregular topographic model. This technique uses unstructured meshes to express an irregular topography, and traveltimes calculated from the frequency-domain damped wavefields using the finite element method. The diagonal elements of the approximate Hessian matrix were adopted for preconditioning, and the principle of reciprocity was introduced to efficiently calculate the Fréchet derivative. We also included regularization to resolve the ill-posed inverse problem, and used the nonlinear conjugate gradient method to solve the inverse problem.As the damped wavefields were used, there were no issues associated with artificial reflections caused by unstructured meshes. In addition, the shadow zone problem could be circumvented because this method is based on the exact wave equation, which does not require a high-frequency assumption. Furthermore, the proposed method was both robust to an initial velocity model and efficient compared to full wavefield inversions. Through synthetic and field data examples, our method was shown to successfully reconstruct shallow velocity structures. To verify our method, static corrections were roughly applied to the field data using the estimated near-surface velocity. By comparing common shot gathers and stack sections with and without static corrections, we confirmed that the proposed tomography algorithm can be used to correct the statics of land seismic data.

Time-domain full-waveform inversion of exponentially damped wavefield using the deconvolution-based objective function

Full-waveform inversion (FWI) suffers from the cycle-skipping problem when the available frequency-band of data is not low enough. We have applied an exponential damping to the data to generate artificial low frequencies, which helps FWI to avoid cycle skipping. In this case, the least-squares misfit function does not properly deal with the exponentially damped wavefield in FWI because the amplitude of traces decays almost exponentially with increasing offset in a damped wavefield. Thus, we use a deconvolution-based objective function for FWI of the exponentially damped wavefield. The deconvolution filter includes inherently a normalization between the modeled and observed data; thus, it can address the unbalanced amplitude of a damped wavefield. We specifically normalize the modeled data with the observed data in the frequency-domain to estimate the deconvolution filter and selectively choose a frequency-band for normalization that mainly includes the artificial low frequencies. We calculate the gradient of the objective function using the adjoint-state method. The synthetic and benchmark data examples indicate that our FWI algorithm generates a convergent long-wavelength structure without low-frequency information in the recorded data.

Comparison of weighting techniques for acoustic full waveform inversion

To reconstruct long-wavelength structures in full waveform inversion (FWI), the wavefield-damping and weighting techniques have been used to synthesize and emphasize low-frequency data components in frequency-domain FWI. However, these methods have some weak points. The application of wavefield-damping method on filtered data fails to synthesize reliable low-frequency data; the optimization formula obtained introducing the weighting technique is not theoretically complete, because it is not directly derived from the objective function. In this study, we address these weak points and present how to overcome them. We demonstrate that the source estimation in FWI using damped wavefields fails when the data used in the FWI process does not satisfy the causality condition. This phenomenon occurs when a non-causal filter is applied to data. We overcome this limitation by designing a causal filter. Also we modify the conventional weighting technique so that its optimization formula is directly derived from the objective function, retaining its original characteristic of emphasizing the low-frequency data components. Numerical results show that the newly designed causal filter enables to recover long-wavelength structures using low-frequency data components synthesized by damping wavefields in frequency-domain FWI, and the proposed weighting technique enhances the inversion results.

Smooth 2‐D ocean sound speed from Laplace and Laplace‐Fourier domain inversion of seismic oceanography data

AbstractIn seismic oceanography, processed images highlight small temperature changes, but inversion is needed to obtain absolute temperatures. Local search‐based full waveform inversion has a lower computational cost than global search but requires accurate starting models. Unfortunately, most marine seismic data have little associated hydrographic data and the band‐limited nature of seismic data makes extracting the long wavelength sound speed trend directly from seismic data inherently challenging. Laplace and Laplace‐Fourier domain inversion (LDI) can use rudimentary starting models without prior information about the medium. Data are transformed to the Laplace domain, and a smooth sound speed model is extracted by examining the zero and low frequency components of the damped wavefield. We applied LDI to five synthetic data sets based on oceanographic features and recovered smoothed versions of our synthetic models, showing the viability of LDI for creating starting models suitable for more detailed inversions.

Frequency-domain elastic full-waveform multiscale inversion method based on dual-level parallelism

The complexity of an elastic wavefield increases the nonlinearity of inversion. To some extent, multiscale inversion decreases the nonlinearity of inversion and prevents it from falling into local extremes. A multiscale strategy based on the simultaneous use of frequency groups and layer stripping method based on damped wave field improves the stability of inversion. A dual-level parallel algorithm is then used to decrease the computational cost and improve practicability. The seismic wave modeling of a single frequency and inversion in a frequency group are computed in parallel by multiple nodes based on multifrontal massively parallel sparse direct solver and MPI. Numerical tests using an overthrust model show that the proposed inversion algorithm can effectively improve the stability and accuracy of inversion by selecting the appropriate inversion frequency and damping factor in lowfrequency seismic data.

Laplace–Fourier-Domain Full Waveform Inversion of Deep-Sea Seismic Data Acquired with Limited Offsets

Laplace–Fourier-domain full waveform inversion is considered one of the most reliable schemes to alleviate the drawbacks of conventional frequency-domain inversion, such as local minima. Using a damped wavefield, we can reduce the possibility of converging to local minima and produce an accurate long-wavelength velocity model. Then, we can obtain final inversion results using high-frequency components and low damping coefficients. However, the imaging area is limited because this scheme uses a damped wavefield that makes the magnitudes of the gradient and residual small in deep areas. Generally, the imaging depth of Laplace–Fourier-domain full waveform inversion is half the streamer length. Thus, dealing with seismic data in the deep-sea layer is difficult. The deep-sea layer reduces the amplitude of signals and acts as an obstacle for computing an exact gradient image. To reduce the water layer’s effect, we extrapolated the wavefield with a downward continuation and performed refraction tomography. Then, we performed Laplace–Fourier-domain full waveform inversion using the refraction tomography results as an initial model. After obtaining a final velocity model, we verified the inversion results using Kirchhoff migration. We presented common image gathers and a synthetic seismogram of Sumatra field data to prove the reliability of the velocity model obtained by Laplace–Fourier-domain full waveform inversion. Through the test, we concluded that Laplace–Fourier-domain full waveform inversion with refraction tomography of the downward-continued wavefield recovers the subsurface structures located at depth despite a relatively short streamer length compared to the water depth.

Laplace-Fourier-domain dispersion analysis of an average derivative optimal scheme for scalar-wave equation

S U M M A R Y By using low-frequency components of the damped wavefield, Laplace-Fourier-domain full waveform inversion (FWI) can recover a long-wavelength velocity model from the original undamped seismic data lacking low-frequency information. Laplace-Fourier-domain modelling is an important foundation of Laplace-Fourier-domain FWI. Based on the numerical phase velocity and the numerical attenuation propagation velocity, a method for performing Laplace-Fourier-domain numerical dispersion analysis is developed in this paper. This method is applied to an average-derivative optimal scheme. The results show that within the relative error of 1 per cent, the Laplace-Fourier-domain average-derivative optimal scheme requires seven gridpoints per smallest wavelength and smallest pseudo-wavelength for both equal and unequal directional sampling intervals. In contrast, the classical five-point scheme requires 23 gridpoints per smallest wavelength and smallest pseudo-wavelength to achieve the same accuracy. Numerical experiments demonstrate the theoretical analysis.

스트리머 방식 탐사 자료의 동시 송신원 전파형 역산을 위한 Global correlation 기반 목적함수 최적화 연구

동시 송신원 전파형 역산 기법은 계산량을 획기적으로 줄여 전파형 역산의 적용성을 높여준다. 그러나 다수의 송신원 모음 자료를 동시에 모델링하여 사용하기 때문에 관측 자료의 수진기 위치가 송신원에 따라 다른 경우, 나머지(residual) 파동장에 불필요한 값을 생성하게 되고 이는 파형역산의 수렴성을 저해하게 된다. 특히, 제한된 벌림 거리(offset)를 갖는 스트리머 방식의 탐사자료는 동시 송신원 기법을 적용하기에 가장 어려운 자료 형태이다. 이러한 문제점을 극복하기 위해 최근에 global correlation에 기반한 목적함수가 제안되었고, 시간영역 전파형 역산에 성공적으로 적용되었다. 그러나 이 기법은 변형된 목적함수를 사용하기 때문에 나머지 파동장이 왜곡되고 경우에 따라 역산 결과에 부정적인 영향을 주기도 한다. 또한, 여러 가지 장점을 갖고 있는 주파수 영역 파형역산에 적용된 사례는 아직 보고된 적이 없다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 나머지 파동장의 왜곡을 최소화하기 위해 global correlation 계산 시 사용하는 자료에 진폭감쇠 기법을 적용한다. 진폭감쇠를 적용한 자료는 global correlation의 특성을 최적화하여 나머지 파동장의 왜곡을 줄이고 파형역산 결과를 향상시킨다. 시간 영역에서 구한 나머지 파동장을 주파수 영역에서 역전파시킴으로써 global correlation기법을 주파수 영역에서 구현한다. 스트리머 방식의 합성 탐사자료를 이용한 예제를 통해 본 논문에서 제안한 기법이 기존의 global correlation 목적함수에 기반한 동시 송신원 전파형 역산보다 향상된 결과를 얻을 수 있음을 보여준다. The simultaneous-source full waveform inversion improves the applicability of full waveform inversion by reducing the computational cost. Since this technique adopts simultaneous multi-source for forward modeling, unwanted events remain in the residual seismograms when the receiver geometry of field acquisition is different from that of numerical modeling. As a result, these events impede the convergence of the full waveform inversion. In particular, the streamer-type data with limited offsets is the most difficult data to apply the simultaneous-source technique. To overcome this problem, the global-correlation-based objective function was suggested and it was successfully applied to the simultaneous-source full waveform inversion in time domain. However, this method distorts residual wavefields due to the modified objective function and has a negative influence on the inversion result. In addition, this method has not been applied to the frequency-domain simultaneous-source full waveform inversion. In this paper, we apply a timedamping function to the observed and modeled data, which are used to compute global correlation, to minimize the distortion of residual wavefields. Since the damped wavefields optimize the performance of the global correlation, it mitigates the distortion of the residual wavefields and improves the inversion result. Our algorithm incorporates the globalcorrelation-based full waveform inversion into the frequency domain by back-propagating the time-domain residual wavefields in the frequency domain. Through the numerical examples using the streamer-type data, we show that our inversion algorithm better describes the velocity structure than the conventional global correlation approach does.

Proof of the existence of both zero- and low-frequency information in a damped wavefield

Abstract We show how both zero- and low-frequency information can be obtained by applying an exponentially decaying damping function to a seismic signal containing no low-frequency information. The discrete Fourier transformation of a damped signal is identical to a circular convolution of the signal and the damping function in the frequency‐domain. Therefore, the zero- and low-frequency components of a damped signal are a weighted summation of the frequency components of the original signal. We also prove the existence of these components using a Fourier series. As the Fourier transforms of damped sine and cosine signals have both zero- and low-frequency components, a causal wavefield that can be represented by the summation of sines and cosines also has these components. These zero- and low-frequency components are not equivalent to the original low-frequency information. Instead, they can be thought as a blurring of the original signal. The Laplace-domain inversion utilizes this information to build a large-scale velocity model. We demonstrate this through numerical examples using the Marmousi velocity model. The examples show that a Laplace-domain inversion result is similar to that of a frequency-domain inversion using very low-frequency information.

Laplace-domain waveform inversion versus refraction-traveltime tomography

SUMMARY Geophysicists and applied mathematicians have proposed a rich suite of long-wavelength velocity estimation algorithms to construct starting velocity models for subsequent pre-stack depth migration and inversion. Refraction-traveltime tomography derives subsurface velocity models from picked first-arrival traveltimes. In contrast, Laplace-domain waveform inversion recovers long-wavelength velocity structure using the weighted amplitudes of first and later arrivals. There are several implementations of first-arrival traveltime inversion, with most based on ray tracing, and some based on the damped monochromatic wave equation, which accurately represent simple and finite-frequency first arrivals. Computationally, Laplace-domain wavefield inversion is quite similar to refraction-traveltime tomography using damped monochromatic wavefield, but the objective functions used in inversion are radically different. As in classical ray trace-based traveltime inversion, the objective of refraction-traveltime tomography using damped monochromatic wavefield is to match the phase (traveltime) of the first arrival of each measured seismic trace. In contrast, the objective of Laplace-domain wavefield inversion is to match the weighted amplitudes of both first and later arrivals to the weighted amplitudes of the measured seismic trace. Principles of refraction-traveltime tomography were used to generate velocity models of the earth one century ago. Laplace-domain waveform inversion is a more recently introduced algorithm and has been less rigorously studied by the seismic research community, with many workers believing it be equivalent to finite-frequency first-arrival traveltime tomography. We show that Laplace-domain waveform inversion is both theoretically and empirically different from finite-frequency first-arrival traveltime tomography. Specifically, we examine the Jacobian (sensitivity) kernels used in the two inversion schemes to quantify the different sensitivities (and hence the inversion results) of the two methods. Analysing both surface responses and sensitivity results, we show that the Laplace-domain waveform inversion's sensitivity to later arrivals provides significantly improved resolution of deeper velocity structure than the first-arrival traveltime tomography. We demonstrate this capability using numerical inversion examples using a synthetic five-layer model and the synthetic BP benchmark model. Because of the similar algorithmic structure, Laplace-domain waveform inversion fits neatly as a starting velocity model pre-processing component of a larger (multi) frequency-domain wave equation inversion solution package.

A comparison between Laplace domain and frequency domain methods for inverting seismic waveforms

We compared the ability of full waveform inversion to recover background velocity models from data containing no low-frequency information using the frequency and Laplace domains. Low-frequency information is crucial for recovering background velocity when using frequency-domain waveform inversions. However, the dearth of low-frequency information in field data makes frequency-domain inversion impractical without accurate starting velocity models. Instead, by performing waveform inversion in the Laplace domain, one can recover a smooth velocity model that can be used for either migration or for subsequent frequency-domain inversion as an accurate initial velocity model. The Laplace-transformed wavefield can be thought of as the zero-frequency component of a damped wavefield over a range of damping constants. In this paper, we compare results obtained from both frequency- and Laplace-domain inversions and confirm that the Laplace-domain inversion can be used to recover background velocity from real data without low-frequency information. We also demonstrate that the Laplace-domain inversion can provide the frequency-domain inversion with smooth initial velocity models for better inversion results.

2D acoustic‐elastic coupled waveform inversion in the Laplace domain

ABSTRACTAlthough waveform inversion has been intensively studied in an effort to properly delineate the Earth's structures since the early 1980s, most of the time‐ and frequency‐domain waveform inversion algorithms still have critical limitations in their applications to field data. This may be attributed to the highly non‐linear objective function and the unreliable low‐frequency components. To overcome the weaknesses of conventional waveform inversion algorithms, the acoustic Laplace‐domain waveform inversion has been proposed. The Laplace‐domain waveform inversion has been known to provide a long‐wavelength velocity model even for field data, which may be because it employs the zero‐frequency component of the damped wavefield and a well‐behaved logarithmic objective function. However, its applications have been confined to 2D acoustic media.We extend the Laplace‐domain waveform inversion algorithm to a 2D acoustic‐elastic coupled medium, which is encountered in marine exploration environments. In 2D acoustic‐elastic coupled media, the Laplace‐domain pressures behave differently from those of 2D acoustic media, although the overall features are similar to each other. The main differences are that the pressure wavefields for acoustic‐elastic coupled media show negative values even for simple geological structures unlike in acoustic media, when the Laplace damping constant is small and the water depth is shallow. The negative values may result from more complicated wave propagation in elastic media and at fluid‐solid interfaces.Our Laplace‐domain waveform inversion algorithm is also based on the finite‐element method and logarithmic wavefields. To compute gradient direction, we apply the back‐propagation technique. Under the assumption that density is fixed, P‐ and S‐wave velocity models are inverted from the pressure data. We applied our inversion algorithm to the SEG/EAGE salt model and the numerical results showed that the Laplace‐domain waveform inversion successfully recovers the long‐wavelength structures of the P‐ and S‐wave velocity models from the noise‐free data. The models inverted by the Laplace‐domain waveform inversion were able to be successfully used as initial models in the subsequent frequency‐domain waveform inversion, which is performed to describe the short‐wavelength structures of the true models.

A comparison between the behavior of objective functions for waveform inversion in the frequency and Laplace domains

In the frequency domain, gradient-based local-optimization methods of waveform inversions have been unsuccessful at inverting subsurface parameters without an accurate starting model. Such methods could not correct automatically for poor starting models because multiple local minima made it difficult to approach the true global minimum. In this study, we compared the behavior of objective functions in the frequency and Laplace domains. Wavefields in the Laplace domain correspond to the zero-frequency component of a damped wavefield; thus, the Laplace-domain waveform inversion can image smooth velocity models. Objective functions in the Laplace-domain inversion have a smoother surface and fewer local minima than in the frequency-domain inversion. We applied the waveform inversion to a 2D slice of the acoustic SEG/EAGE salt model in the Laplace domain and recovered smooth velocity models from inaccurate initial velocity conditions. We also successfully imaged velocities of the salt, SEG overthrust, and Institut Francais du Petrole Marmousi models with the frequency-domain inversion method by using the inverted velocity model of the Laplace-domain inversion as the initial model.

Waveform inversion in the Laplace domain

SUMMARY For the last 30 yr, since Tarantola’s pioneering theoretical study of waveform inversion, geophysicists and applied mathematicians have utilized a waveform inversion to delineate the earth’s structures. However, successful applications of waveform inversion to real data are nominal. The failures are mainly caused by the high non-linearity of the waveform inversion and the real data containing insufficient low-frequency components. We propose a waveform inversion algorithm that is robust and is not sensitive to the initial model by exploiting the wavefield in the Laplace domain and the adjoint property of the wave equation. The wavefield in the Laplace domain is equivalent to the zero frequency component of the damped wavefield. Therefore, the inversion of Poisson’s equation in electrical prospecting can be viewed as a waveform inversion problem, exploiting the zero frequency component of an undamped wavefield. Since our inversion algorithm in the Laplace domain is strongly associated with the nature of DC inversion for Poisson’s equation in electrical prospecting, our algorithm can generate a velocity model that is equivalent to a long-wavelength velocity model (a smooth velocity model). Through numerical tests, we found that the Laplace-transformed wavefields for optimally low Laplace damping constants are critically needed in our algorithm as the low-frequency components are necessary in the waveform inversion of the frequency domain. We note that the objective function by l2 norm of the logarithmic wavefield in the Laplace domain behaves as if it has no local minimum points in low and high Laplace damping constants. Moreover, we note that the forward modelling in the Laplace domain could be accurately calculated by using a coarser grid of several hundreds of metres than that of the frequency domain. Numerical tests of the salt dome model with high-velocity contrast demonstrate the robustness of our algorithm to both synthetic and real data. To apply our algorithm to real data more successfully, we need to improve the accuracy of the Laplace transformation for the wavefields in the time domain. However, our waveform inversion in the Laplace domain can be successfully applied to real data since our algorithm has more advantages in forward modelling and inversion than those in the frequency domain.

Refraction tomography using a waveform-inversion back-propagation technique

One of the applications of refraction-traveltime tomography is to provide an initial model for waveform inversion and Kirchhoff prestack migration. For such applications, we need a refraction-traveltime tomography method that is robust for complicated and high-velocity-contrast models. Of the many refraction-traveltime tomography methods available, we believe wave-based algorithms to be best suited for dealing with complicated models. We developed a new wave-based, refraction-tomography algorithm using a damped wave equation and a waveform-inversion back-propagation technique. The imaginary part of a complex angular frequency, which is generally introduced in frequency-domain wave modeling, acts as a damping factor. By choosing an optimal damping factor from the numerical-dispersion relation, we can suppress the wavetrains following the first arrival. The objective function of our algorithm consists of residuals between the respective phases of first arrivals in field data and in forward-modeled data. The model-response, first-arrival phases can be obtained by taking the natural logarithm of damped wavefields at a single frequency low enough to yield unwrapped phases, whereas field-data phases are generated by multiplying picked first-arrival traveltimes by the same angular frequency used to compute model-response phases. To compute the steepest-descent direction, we apply a waveform-inversion back-propagation algorithm based on the symmetry of the Green’s function for the wave equation (i.e., the adjoint state of the wave equation), allowing us to avoid directly computing and saving sensitivities (Fréchet derivatives). From numerical examples of a block-anomaly model and the Marmousi-2 model, we confirm that traveltimes computed from a damped monochromatic wavefield are compatible with those picked from synthetic data, and our refraction-tomography method can provide initial models for Kirchhoff prestack depth migration.

Characterization of the resonant electromagnetic mode in helicon discharges

This paper presents experimental evidence for the existence of a resonant electromagnetic mode in a helicon plasma, and characterizes its resonant frequency, energy absorption rate, and contribution to the overall power balance. An experimental method developed to detect and characterize the plasma impedance is introduced. Power flow analysis shows that the resonant electromagnetic mode is the dominant mechanism driving helicon plasma discharges in cylindrical geometry. The weakly damped wavefields are absorbed in a short distance, indicating that the wavefields may be trapped in a potential well created by a density gradient.

Sound Radiation due to Tire Tread Vibration

A theoretical model was studied to describe the sound radiation created by surface vibration of in-service tires. The tire is modeled as a circular ring model. The effects of normalized frequency and the structural loss factor are included. The radiation sound power is calculated as a function of the normalized frequency and the structural loss factor through numerical integration of the sound pressure. The basic sound radiation mechanism is shown to be a damped progressive wave field on the structure in the vicinity of the applied force. The result indicates that the potential sound reduction might be obtained if the values of the normalized frequency and structural loss factor are determined.