ESTIMATION OF THE ATTENUATION OF SOUND IN MARINE SEDIMENTS BY NORMALLY-INCIDENT PULSES

A method of remote sensing of attenuation coefficient of sound wave in marine sediments is proposed in this paper.Under certain conditions the echo envelope has an exponential decay EXP(-βCt).When the frequency is high enough,the exponential decay would be the dominant factor in the shape of the echo envelope.Therefore,the attenuation coefficient can be estimated from the envelope.The echo as a function of time is deduced on the basis of a small-scale layering model of marine sediments.The deduction can be regarded as a description of the mechanism of the volume-scattering of high-frequency sound in marine sediment.Experiments at sea are described,and the results are given.