Reflection and propagation loss over porous sediments

A full wave acoustic propagation model in a stratified viscoelastic medium [H. Schmidt and F. B. Jensen, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 77, 813–825 (1985)] was combined with Biot’s theory for propagation and reflection in a porous medium [Stern et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 77, 1781–1788 (1985)] to produce a model of acoustic propagation in a stratified porous medium. Sample results were compared with a normal mode model [T. Yamamoto, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 73, 1587–1596 (1983)]. The model was extended to account for the effect of gas bubbles in the pore fluid [J. A. Hawkins and A. Bedford, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 88, S131 (1990)]. Significant differences between viscoelastic, poroelastic, and gassy poroelastic models were investigated. [Work supported by ONR.]