Numerical Modeling and Simulation of Acoustic Propagation in Shallow Water

Abstract

The sound has been extensively used in active and passive detection of ships and submarines, seismic studies, communications and acoustic tomography. The high sensitivity to the propagation of acoustic signals with frequencies between 1 Hz and 20 kHz is one of the most important properties of the oceans and unlike all types of electromagnetic radiation, can gather a significant amount of information on large-and small-scale marine. The main objective of the underwater acoustic models is to simulate the propagation of acoustic wave, for a wide variety of cases, thus providing the most important features of this phenomenon. When it comes to the environment of "shallow water", which limits some models, the acoustic propagation becomes extremely complex due to several mechanisms to mitigate present and the intense interaction of the acoustic signal at the top and bottom. This paper aims to present a model of acoustic propagation in shallow water, and the simulation using a Toolbox from MatLab software of a particular case of propagation.