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Related Concept Videos

Reflection of Waves01:07

Reflection of Waves

When a wave travels from one medium to another, it gets reflected at the boundary of the second medium. A common example of this is when a person yells at a distance from a cliff and hears the echo of their voice. The sound waves (longitudinal waves) traveling in the air are reflected from the bounding cliff. Similarly, flipping one end of a string whose other end is tied to a wall causes a pulse (transverse wave) to travel through the string, which gets reflected upon reaching the wall. In...
Echo01:06

Echo

The human ear cannot distinguish between two sources of sound if they happen to reach within a specific time interval, typically 0.1 seconds apart. More than this, and they are perceived as separate sources.
Imagine the sound is reflected back to the ears. Assuming that the source is very close to the human, the difference between hearing the two sounds—the emitted sound and the reflected sound—may be more than the minimum time for perceiving distinct sounds. If this is the case, then the...
Sound Waves: Interference00:53

Sound Waves: Interference

Sound waves can be modeled either as longitudinal waves, wherein the molecules of the medium oscillate around an equilibrium position, or as pressure waves. When two identical waves from the same source superimpose on each other, the combination of two crests or two troughs results in amplitude reinforcement known as constructive interference. If two identical waves, that are initially in phase, become out of phase because of different path lengths, the combination of crests with troughs...
Shock Waves01:16

Shock Waves

While deriving the Doppler formula for the observed frequency of a sound wave, it is assumed that the speed of sound in the medium is greater than the source's speed through it. When this condition is breached, a shock wave occurs.
When the source's speed approaches the speed of sound, constructive interference between successive wavefronts emitted by the source occurs immediately behind it. Initially, scientists believed that this constructive interference would result in such high pressures...
Reconstruction of Signal using Interpolation01:10

Reconstruction of Signal using Interpolation

Signal processing techniques are essential for accurately converting continuous signals to digital formats and vice versa. When a continuous signal is sampled with a period T, the resulting sampled signal exhibits replicas of the original spectrum in the frequency domain, spaced at intervals equal to the sampling frequency. To handle this sampled signal, a zero-order hold method can be applied, which creates a piecewise constant signal by retaining each sample's value until the next sampling...
Propagation of Waves01:07

Propagation of Waves

When a wave propagates from one medium to another, part of it may get reflected in the first medium, and part of it may get transmitted to the second medium. In such a case, the interface of the two mediums can be considered as a boundary that is neither fixed nor free.
Consider a scenario where a wave propagates from a string of low linear mass density to a string of high linear mass density. In such a case, the reflected wave is out of phase with respect to the incident wave, however the...

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A Stable Phantom Material for Optical and Acoustic Imaging
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Published on: June 16, 2023

Reconstructing surface wave profiles from reflected acoustic pulses.

Sean P Walstead1, Grant B Deane

  • 1Marine Physical Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0238, USA. swalstead@ucsd.edu

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|May 10, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Analyzing underwater acoustic signals allows for the reconstruction of surface wave shapes. This method uses an inverse processing algorithm to accurately model wave displacement profiles, crucial for oceanographic studies.

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Area of Science:

  • Oceanography
  • Acoustics
  • Fluid Dynamics

Background:

  • Accurate characterization of surface waves is essential for understanding ocean dynamics and wave-sea interactions.
  • Traditional methods for measuring surface wave profiles can be limited in scope or accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop and implement an inverse processing algorithm for reconstructing surface wave shapes.
  • To analyze the physical length scales influencing surface wave reconstruction accuracy.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing forward-scattered acoustic signals (200 kHz) from laboratory-generated surface waves.
  • Employing an inverse algorithm based on Kirchhoff's diffraction formula and iterative surface adjustment.
  • Comparing reconstructions using two distinct initial wave profiles.

Main Results:

  • Successfully reconstructed surface displacement profiles of waves over a complete period.
  • Identified two key length scales: the Fresnel zone (outer) and a quarter-wavelength of the acoustic pulse (inner).
  • Demonstrated that surface profile convergence and statistical confidence are highest within the Fresnel zone.

Conclusions:

  • The inverse processing algorithm effectively reconstructs surface wave profiles.
  • The Fresnel zone dictates the region of reliable surface information, with resolution limited by the acoustic wavelength.
  • Future enhancements include using receiver arrays to expand reconstruction areas.