Bounded beam transmission across water/sand interface. Part 1—Experiment

A series of measurements was made to investigate the effect of the water/sediment interface on a propagating acoustic signal. Under nearly laboratory conditions, data were collected mapping out the sound‐pressure field in a homogeneous sand for a variety of nonlinear and linear sources. The data were collected using the following sources: a truncated parametric source, a saturation limited parametric source with effective length less than the sender‐interface distances, and a linear source, all operating at a frequency of 20 kHz. The data were taken at grazing angles that ranged from well‐above to well‐below the critical angle for the sediment. Based on the data collected from the in‐sediment pressure field, contours were obtained detailing the magnitude and direction of the pressure wave in the sediment. These pressure field contours, as well as experimental procedures and analysis techniques, will be presented. A comparison with theoretical predictions will be made in the following paper.