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Author Spotlight: A Stable Phantom Material for Optical and Acoustic Imaging
Published on: June 16, 2023
Numerical-modeling-based investigation of sound transmission and reception in the short-finned pilot whale
Zhongchang Song1, Jinhu Zhang2, Wenzhan Ou2
1State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of the Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, Fujian, China.
Abstract:
The sound-transmission, beam-formation, and sound-reception processes of a short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) were investigated using computed tomography (CT) scanning and numerical simulation. The results showed that sound propagations in the forehead were modulated by the upper jaw, air components, and soft tissues, which attributed to the beam formation in the external acoustic field. These structures owned different acoustic impedance and formed a multiphasic sound transmission system that can modulate sounds into a beam. The reception pathways composed of the solid mandible and acoustic fats in the lower head conducted sounds into the tympano-periotic complex. In the simulations, sounds were emitted in the forehead transmission system and propagated into water to interrogate a steel cylinder. The resulting echoes can be interpreted from multiple perspectives, including amplitude, waveform, and spectrum, to obtain the acoustic cues of the steel cylinder. By taking the short-finned pilot whale as an example, this study provides meaningful information to further deepen our understanding of biosonar system operations, and may expand sound-reception theory in odontocetes.
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