An improved wave-vector frequency-domain method for nonlinear wave modeling

In this paper, a recently developed wave-vector frequency-domain method for nonlinear wave modeling is improved and verified by numerical simulations and underwater experiments. Higher order numeric schemes are proposed that significantly increase the modeling accuracy, thereby allowing for a larger step size and shorter computation time. The improved algorithms replace the left-point Riemann sum in the original algorithm by the trapezoidal or Simpson's integration. Plane waves and a phased array were first studied to numerically validate the model. It is shown that the left-point Riemann sum, trapezoidal, and Simpson's integration have first-, second-, and third-order global accuracy, respectively. A highly focused therapeutic transducer was then used for experimental verifications. Short high-intensity pulses were generated. 2-D scans were conducted at a prefocal plane, which were later used as the input to the numerical model to predict the acoustic field at other planes. Good agreement is observed between simulations and experiments.