Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235

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Applied Acoustics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apacoust

Acoustic modelling of a transient source in shallow water

Roy L. Deavenport a,⇑, Matthew J. Gilchrest a, David J. Thomson b
a
Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, RI 02841, United States
b
733 Lomax Road, Victoria, BC V9C 4A4, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A desirable requirement for underwater acoustic models is the ability to simulate a transient signal prop-
Received 4 June 2018 agating in an ocean waveguide. Relevant broadband signals are generated, for example, by airguns used
Received in revised form 7 November 2018 in seismic exploration, transducers used for underwater communication systems, and vocalizations pro-
Accepted 24 January 2019
duced by marine mammals. Single-frequency acoustic models based on ray, mode, wavenumber integra-
tion or parabolic equation representations are often used for this purpose by employing a Fourier
synthesis method. In this case, the multiple-frequency, bandlimited medium transfer function is filtered
Keywords:
by the spectrum of the source and then inverse Fourier transformed to yield the time-domain waveform.
Convolution
Bandlimited
In contrast, direct convolution of a source signal with the medium’s impulse response can be carried out
Fourier synthesis in the time domain. In this paper we describe a convolution-based approach using a ray model represen-
Pekeris waveguide tation of the propagation whereby each eigenray amplitude is assumed to be independent of frequency
Ricker wavelet but its phase variation is taken into account. As a result, only a single-frequency calculation is required of
Image method the ray model at each range. The two methods are subsequently used to simulate a bandlimited transient
signal propagating in a shallow-water, lossy-bottom, Pekeris waveguide.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
Current numerical models for simulating coherent underwater
sound propagation in realistic shallow-water waveguides have
evolved to the point of being routinely used for marine mammal
mitigation surveys, source localization based on matched-field
processing (MFP) concepts [1] and geoacoustic inversion using
nonlinear, MFP-based, global optimization procedures [2]. Propa-
gation models that are based on the four standard representations
for the acoustic field have been developed into reliable and effi-
cient computer codes, e.g., ray-based [3], wavenumber integral
[4], normal mode [5], and parabolic equation [6] (see also [7]).
For each of these representations of the acoustic field, a time-
harmonic, (e
ixt ), single-frequency point source is considered. This
source derives from the historical motivation that underlies each of
these representations, namely, to provide single-frequency esti-
mates of transmission loss (TL) for use in navy sonar performance
prediction applications.
Any of the four single-frequency acoustic model representa-
tions given above can be used to generate transient signals in a
range-independent ocean waveguide by using a Fourier synthesis
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: roy.deavenport@navy.mil (R.L. Deavenport),
gilchrest@navy.mil (M.J. Gilchrest), drdjt@shaw.ca (D.J. Thomson).
approach (see e.g. [7]). Since the effective spectral bandwidth is
determined by the frequency content of the source waveform, a
number of single-frequency acoustic predictions must be carried
out that span this bandwidth using a frequency-sampling interval
determined by the time spread of the multipath arrivals at the
range of interest. The resulting medium transfer function is then
multiplied by the spectral content of the source and the product
is inverse Fourier transformed to yield the transient waveform. A
real time-domain signal is obtained by ensuring that the real and
imaginary parts of the complex frequency-domain product exhibit
even and odd symmetry, respectively. Jensen et al. [8] used the
Fourier synthesis method in this way to simulate ray, modal and
parabolic equation broadband propagation for a Ricker wavelet
source [9,10] in a 2D shallow-water waveguide with upslope/-
downslope bathymetry. Their study was aimed at assessing the
accuracy of the range-dependent modelling as well as the effi-
ciency of the various computer codes. Excellent inter-model agree-
ment was obtained for all of the acoustic models used except for
the ray-based code that had difficulty modelling the early arrivals
that were refracted from the near-surface sound speed profile. In
addition, for the modal codes, which made use of the adiabatic
approximation, an upgrade to coupled-modes was recommended.
In contrast to the 2D range-dependent waveguide used by Jensen
et al., Sturm [11] has used the Fourier synthesis method to study
matthew. time-domain propagation in a range-, depth- and azimuth-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2019.01.028
0003-682X/Published by Elsevier Ltd.
228 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235
dependent upslope environment using a 3D parabolic equation
model.
In the time-domain, the Fourier synthesis method is equivalent
to evaluating the convolution of the source wavelet with the med-
ium’s impulse response. This direct approach to modelling propa-
gation in the time domain was recently carried out using a
modal representation for an isovelocity waveguide with perfectly
reflecting boundaries [12]. The general causal solution of the inho-
mogeneous wave equation was obtained analytically from two
independent solutions of the (incompletely) separated wave equa-
tion. Numerical examples were carried out for both cosine and
gaussian source waveforms. Single-frequency transmission loss
comparisons were made between the exact normal mode solution
and a standard numerical mode model [5]. In the time domain, the
normal mode solution was compared to an exact image method
solution. Excellent agreement was obtained for all model
comparisons.
An alternative convolution procedure for simulating a transient
signal was developed in [13] and is based on a ray-based represen-
tation of shallow-water propagation. In this previous work, the
impulse response of the medium was convolved with a nonlinear
explosive source waveform whose peak pressure level is given
semi-empirically in terms of a scaled range (geometric similitude).
A recent experiment [14] involving explosive sources in shallow
water (< 15 m) used similar formulas based on measurements
reported in [15] to analyze near-field (< 1 km) propagation to a
vertical line array (VLA) for determining peak and sound exposure
levels. An important assumption that underlies the use of the polar
form of the ray theory model used in [13] is that each eigenray
amplitude is assumed to be independent of frequency. As a result,
the phase variation of the nth eigenray is readily handled solely via
x in the factor eixT n where T n is its delay time (see Eq. (16)) prior to
summing the eigenray contributions in the calculation of the med-
ium’s transfer function at a given range. After inverse transforming
to the time domain (via an FFT), the resulting impulse response is
convolved with the source waveform to generate the simulated
transient signal in the waveguide.
It is worth mentioning that a nonlinear progressive wave equa-
tion based on the parabolic approximation (NPE) was developed by
McDonald et al. [16] to solve the nonlinear Euler equations numer-
ically. They used the NPE model to estimate the effects of shock-
wave propagation in an ocean waveguide. In addition, Cotaras
et al. [17] developed a nonlinear ray theory for finite amplitude
propagation. A summary of this ray-based progressive wave prop-
agation in the context of nonlinear acoustics can be found in [18].
In this paper we use the convolution method developed in [13]
to propagate a Ricker wavelet [9,10] in a shallow-water waveguide
similar to the one analyzed previously by Jensen et al. [8]. We
introduce a simplified version of their shallow-water waveguide,
i.e. we replace their downward-refracting sound speed profile by
an isovelocity layer and the range-varying bathymetry by a flat
bottom. These modifications transform their waveguide into one
of Pekeris type. This range-independent environment allows us
to use the wavenumber integration code SAFARI [4] to provide
time-domain simulations computed using the Fourier synthesis
method to use for comparison. In addition, it was convenient to
model the ray representation in terms of image theory where each
bottom-interacting image is modified by the plane-wave reflection
coefficient at the appropriate grazing angle. Numerical justification
for using image theory in this context is provided in the section on
numerical results.
In Section 2 we briefly review the theory underlying two
methods for computing the time response in a shallow-water
waveguide due to a transient source: Fourier synthesis and convo-
lution. This is followed by a description of the bandlimited impulse
function in its polar (ray-based) form. This section concludes with
a summary of the formulae used for computing the acoustic field in
terms of an approximate image theory for a shallow-water waveg-
uide with a penetrable bottom. In Section 3 we provide a numerical
example of propagation in a Pekeris waveguide and compare the
single-frequency transmission losses between the approximate
image theory and a wavenumber integral code [4] at the peak
frequencies (100 Hz and 200 Hz) of a Ricker wavelet. This is
followed by a comparison between the Fourier synthesis and con-
volution methods for the time-domain Ricker wavelet signals at
ranges of 5 km and 10 km in this Pekeris waveguide. Section 3 con-
cludes with a discussion of ray displacement and complex effective
depth extensions to the standard image theory results. Our conclu-
sions and some discussions for further work are provided in
Section 4.
2. Theory
A treatment of the acoustic wave equation for harmonic and
transient sources can be found, for example, in [7] and [19, p. 436].
In the following, we briefly review some basic concepts.
2.1. Broadband modelling
The time-dependent equation for the pressure field in the ocean
in cylindrical coordinates ðr; zÞ is given by (assuming rotational
symmetry),
!
1 @2 dðr Þdðz
z0 Þ
r2
Pðr; z; t Þ ¼
Sðt Þ : ð1Þ
c2 ðr; zÞ @t 2 2pr
where
 
1 @ @ @2
r2 ¼ r þ 2; ð2Þ
r @r @r @z
and cðr; zÞ is the sound speed as a function of range r and depth z.
Here SðtÞ is a real, linear point-radiated signal [units MT
2] at the
channel (filter) input and the instantaneous pressure at the output
is given by Pðr; z; t Þ. The pressure is defined dimensionally by
[ML
1T
2]. A point source is located at ðr; zÞ ¼ ð0; z0 Þ. In our numer-
ical work, Sðt Þ is given explicitly by the Ricker wavelet [9,10]
   
2 2
SðsÞ ¼ 1
2p2 f p s2 exp
p2 f p s2 : ð3Þ
where s ¼ t
t 0 and f p denotes the peak frequency of its spectrum,
i.e.,
f
2  
2 2
Sð f Þ ¼ pffiffiffiffi 3 exp
f =f p : ð4Þ
p pf p
In Fig. 1 (top) we show a Ricker wavelet for a peak frequency
f p ¼ 200 Hz. Its normalized asymmetric spectrum is presented in
Fig. 1 (bottom) and is seen to have an effective bandwidth between
10 Hz and 450 Hz.
2.2. Fourier synthesis
In underwater acoustics, Fourier synthesis is traditionally used
to determine time-dependent solutions for broadband transient
signals. The reason for this is that any of the usual numerical
approaches developed for a single-frequency source (ray,
wavenumber integral, normal mode or parabolic equation) can
be run (without modification) for a number of frequencies that
span the bandwidth of the transient source. From the convolution
theorem, the resulting transfer function can be multiplied by the
spectrum of the source and inverse Fourier transformed to yield
 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235 229

Fig. 1. (top) Ricker wavelet signal for a peak frequency of 200 Hz. (bottom) Normalized spectrum.

the time-domain signal. To see this, we can form a Fourier trans- extensively by seismologists for treating transients in the earth.
form on Eq. (1) to obtain A modern treatment of the Cagniard method is given by Aki and
Z 1 Richards [23]. Our convolution procedure is more general than
pðr; z; xÞ ¼ Pðr; z; t Þ eixt dt; ð5Þ the Cagniard method in that it does not require homogeneous lay-

1
ers. However in both methods one convolves an arbitrary source
where pðr; z; xÞ satisfies the following equation with the impulse function of the medium.
h i dðr Þdðz
z0 Þ
In the convolution method Eq. (1) can be written symbolically
r2 þ k2 ðr; zÞ pðr; z; xÞ ¼
SðxÞ ; ð6Þ in the form
2pr
dðr Þdðz
z0 Þ
and k ¼ x=cðr; zÞ is the total wavenumber. Knowledge of the har- LPðr; z; tÞ ¼
Sðt Þ ; ð10Þ
monic Green’s function Gðr; z; xÞ, which is a solution to the 2pr
single-frequency, point-source Helmholtz equation [20], namely where the linear differential operator L is defined by
h i !
dðrÞdðz
z0 Þ 1 @2
r2 þ k2 ðr; zÞ Gðr; z; xÞ ¼
; ð7Þ L¼ r
2
2
: ð11Þ
2pr c ðr; zÞ @t 2
leads to the time-domain representation
Z 1
From Eq. (9), the retarded time-domain Green’s function impulse
1 hðr; z; t
t 0 Þ for a point source in space and time is
Pðr; z; t Þ ¼ Gðr; z; xÞSðxÞ e
ixt dx ð8Þ
2p
1
dðrÞdðz
z0 Þdðt
t 0 Þ
which provides the desired Fourier synthesis in terms of the pro- Lhðr; z; t
t0 Þ ¼ ; ð12Þ
2p r
duct of the source and medium transfer functions. In the next sec-
tion, we require the time-domain impulse response hðr; z; t Þ defined where t 0 is the initial response time. Here the impulse function
as the inverse Fourier transform of the medium transfer function, hðr; z; t
t 0 Þ depends only on relative time ðt
t 0 Þ. Note that all
i.e., terms in equation Eq. (12) must be dimensionally homogeneous,
Z 1
with each term of dimension L
3T
1 and the three-dimensional
1 time-dependent impulse has dimensions of L
1T
1.
hðr; z; tÞ ¼ Gðr; z; xÞ e
ixt dx: ð9Þ
2p
1 Multiplying both sides of Eq. (12) by Sðt 0 Þ and integrating with
respect to t 0 yields
2.3. Convolution Z 1
0 dðrÞdðz
z0 Þ
Lhðr; z; t
t 0 ÞSðt 0 Þdt ¼
SðtÞ : ð13Þ
0 2pr
There exist situations where the Fourier synthesis approach can
be computationally difficult, such as when the number of frequen- If all initial conditions are assumed to be zero, then the order of dif-
cies required is large or when the source signal does not possess a ferentiation and integration in Eq. (13) can be interchanged since L
Fourier transform (see [21] for a discussion of these and other lim- was defined to be linear. Consequently, Eq. (13) can be put in the
itations). In these cases, alternate methods for modelling broad- equivalent form,
band propagation need to be considered. Direct convolution in Z 1
0 dðr Þdðz
z0 Þ
the time domain is a method that does not involve Fourier trans- L hðr; z; t
t 0 ÞSðt 0 Þdt ¼
Sðt Þ : ð14Þ
0 2pr
forming the signal, that may be a problem for initial value prob-
lems. Cagniard [22] was one of the first to use convolution to Comparison of Eq. (14) with Eq. (10) reveals the convolution inte-
solve time-dependent initial value problems. It has been used gral for the instantaneous pressure P ðr; z; t Þ, namely
230 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235
Z 1
0 the eigenray information in Eq. (16) that is needed to determine
Pðr; z; t Þ ¼ hðr; z; t
t 0 ÞSðt 0 Þdt :
0 the bandlimited transfer function. Each eigenray follows a
Eq. (15) gives the pressure solution to Eq. (1) in terms of a convolu-
tion of the bandlimited linear impulse response hðr; z; t
t 0 Þ with a
real point-radiated signal SðtÞ. This is analogous to using linear sys-
tem theory, but with a linear source that gets propagated and dis-
persed in a linear medium via convolution with a bandlimited
impulse function.
2.4. Bandlimited impulse function
The spatial Green’s function Gðr; z; xÞ that satisfies the elliptic
Helmholtz equation in Eq. (7) has dimensions of L
1 where the har-
monic time dependence expð
ixt Þ has been suppressed. The
wavenumber kðr; zÞ ¼ x=cðr; zÞ where x ¼ 2pf is the angular fre-
quency of the CW source. For an arbitrary angular frequency
x; Gðr; z; xÞ can be expressed in terms of traveling waves using a
ray-based model representation in the form [24,25],
X
N R01
Gðr; z; xÞ ¼ An expðixT n þ i/n Þ;
n¼1
where An is the path amplitude, T n is the delay travel time of the nth
eigenray path, and /n is the eigenray phase shift associated with
boundary and/or caustic interactions. Eq. (16) is recognized as a
general form for the travelling wave Green’s function solution to
the wave equation.
Gðr; z; xÞ is determined from the eigenray amplitudes and
phases for a finite range of frequencies. With this representation,
a significant simplification occurs if the amplitude of each eigenray
is independent of frequency. In this case, the only frequency-
dependent part of Eq. (16) occurs in the expðixT n Þ factor. As a
result, only a single-frequency calculation is needed by the
image/ray model, and the bandlimited transfer function can be
assembled very efficiently. It remains to transform Gðr; z; xÞ for a
receiver at each range and depth via an inverse FFT to obtain the
bandlimited impulse response which is then convolved directly
with the time-domain source signature. This provides the instanta-
neous pressure time series as given by Eq. (15).
2.5. Image theory for the Pekeris waveguide
The lossy Pekeris waveguide used in the numerical calculations
is shown in Fig. 2. It consists of a uniform ocean of depth
h ¼ 200 m, water sound speed c ¼ 1475 m/s, density q ¼ 1 g/cm3,
and absorption a ¼ 0 dB/k overlying a fluid half-space bottom of
sound speed cb ¼ 1600 m/s, density qb ¼ 2 g/cm3 and absorption
ab ¼ 0:5 dB/k. Here k is the acoustic wavelength in the relevant
medium. For this configuration, image theory can be used provide
Fig. 2. Environmental parameters for the Pekeris waveguide.
ð15Þ
sequence of straight-line segments that reflect from the surface
and bottom of the waveguide (i.e. there is no refraction). The
surface- and bottom-reflected eigenrays are modified by the
plane-wave reflection coefficients V s and V b respectively. Although
this representation is an approximation when V b ¼ V b ðhÞ, it can be
quite accurate in some situations [26, p. 346],[27, p. 139]. For
cb > c, the representation can be improved by taking ray displace-
ments at the sea-bottom interface into account for those grazing
angles smaller than the critical ray angle cos
1 ðc=cb Þ [28–30]. In
the present work, however, we have not implemented the ray
displacement contributions (for reasons given in the discussion
following the presentation of numerical results).
The single-frequency image solution for the Pekeris
waveguide can be cast in the form (adapted from the treatment
in [26, p. 346]),
 
expðikR01 Þ expðikR02 Þ X 1 X 4
  exp ikR‘j
pðr; zÞ ¼ þ Vs þ V ‘j h‘j
R02 ‘¼1 j¼1
R‘j
ð16Þ
ð17Þ
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where R01 ¼ r 2 þ ðz
z0 Þ2 and R02 ¼ r 2 þ ðz þ z0 Þ2 are the slant
ranges for the direct path (first term) and surface-image path
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
(second term), respectively. R‘j ¼ r 2 þ z2‘j ; j ¼ 1; . . . 4 are the slant
ranges for the ‘th set of four bottom-bounce image paths with
reflection-coefficient products V ‘j given by
V ‘1 ¼ V ‘
1 ‘
s V b; h‘1 ¼ tan
1 ðz‘1 =r Þ; z‘1 ¼ 2‘h
z
z0 ;
V ‘2 ¼ V ‘s V ‘b ; h‘2 ¼ tan
1 ðz‘2 =r Þ; z‘2 ¼ 2‘h
z þ z0 ;
ð18Þ
V ‘3 ¼ V ‘s V ‘b ; h‘3 ¼ tan
1 ðz‘3 =r Þ; z‘3 ¼ 2‘h þ z
z0 ;
V ‘4 ¼ V ‘þ1
s V b;
‘
h‘4 ¼ tan
1 ðz‘4 =r Þ; z‘4 ¼ 2‘h þ z þ z0 :
Here k ¼ 2pf =c is the wavenumber in 0 < z < h. For the pressure-
release sea-surface used here, V s ¼
1. The slant ranges of the
eigenrays R‘j have grazing angles h‘j at the receiver. The
frequency-independent fluid–fluid bottom losses V b are given by
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  m sin h‘j
n2
cos2 h‘j
V b h‘j ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ; ð19Þ
m sin h‘j þ n2
cos2 h‘j
where m ¼ qb =q and n ¼ c=ðcb þ ibÞ with b ¼ a=ð40plog10 eÞ Np/m.
Since kR‘j ¼ xR‘j =c, each eigenray term of Eq. (17) can be put in
the polar form of Eq. (16) in terms of its travel time T ‘j ¼ R‘j =c,
namely,
 
p‘j ¼ jV ‘j =R‘j j exp ixT ‘j þ i arg V ‘j : ð20Þ
The phase T ‘j is the same as the delay time that Chapman [24],
[31, p. 19] uses in his WKBJ formulation of seismic wave propaga-
tion. Moreover, it is analogous to Hamilton’s principal function of
classical mechanics as described by Whittaker [32] in his develop-
ment of a quantum mechanical principal function involving non-
commuting operators.
3. Numerical examples
3.1. Ricker wavelet (f p ¼ 200 Hz)
To provide some justification for using the approximate image
representation given above, at least for the specific material prop-
erties of the Pekeris waveguide in Fig. 2, we compare single-
frequency transmission losses versus range between the image
model and the SAFARI wavenumber integration model at the peak
 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235 231

frequency f p ¼ 200 Hz of the Ricker wavelet. The source and recei-

ver depths are at z0 ¼ 100 m and z ¼ 20 m respectively. Here trans-
mission loss (TL) in dB re 1 m is defined by TL ¼
20log10 jp=p0 j
where p0 is a reference pressure at a distance of 1 m. The coherent
TL comparisons are shown in Fig. 3 for the range interval 0–10 km.
Even without ray displacement corrections, the agreement
between the two models is seen to be excellent in this case.
The waveguide parameters considered here are very similar to
the ones used by Jensen et al. [8] in their broadband signal propa-
gation study with the exception of the sound speed profile in the
water column. To evaluate the Fourier synthesis versus convolu-
tion procedures in this waveguide, we compare the signal wave-
forms computed for the receiver at ranges of 5 km and 10 km,
respectively.
Fig. 4 shows the Fourier synthesis results compared to the
results obtained by convolution at a range of 5 km. From Fig. 1
(bottom) we observe that the effective bandwidth of the Ricker
wavelet for a peak frequency of 200 Hz is between 10 Hz and
450 Hz. At 10 km range, the multipath spread DT in the source sig-
nal is between 0.5 and 1.0 s so that a sufficient frequency sampling Fig. 4. Comparison of convolution and Fourier synthesis predictions of the Ricker
is satisfied by taking Df ¼ 1 Hz [8]. For the Fourier synthesis proce- wavelet signals (f p ¼ 200 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a range of 5 km.

dure, the (complex) waveguide transfer response is first computed

by SAFARI at 441 frequencies that span the 440-Hz bandwidth. The
transfer function is then multiplied by the (complex) source spec-
trum and the product is inverse Fourier transformed to yield the
required time signature in the waveguide. A reduced sound speed
of 1475 m/s was used to confine the multipath signals to a time
window of 0.5 s at the 5-km range. This result is to be compared
to the time signature computed using the convolution method
which is also shown in Fig. 4. For the convolution calculation, the
amplitude of each eigenray evaluated by the image model is
assumed to be independent of frequency over the bandwidth of
the Ricker wavelet. As a result, the waveguide transfer function
is easily modelled by simply populating the frequency-dependent
term eixT across the full x-bandwidth for each image contribution,
summing over the images at each frequency, and then taking the
inverse transform to the time domain. The resulting impulse
response is then convolved with the source waveform to produce
the signal that is propagated in the waveguide. It is evident from
Fig. 4 that this procedure results in a time signature that closely
resembles the one generated by the Fourier synthesis approach
at a range of 5 km.
To illustrate this comparison more closely, in Fig. 5 we show the
signal characteristics of the Fourier synthesis and convolution
methods for an expanded time interval between 0.0 and 0.1 s,
again for a receiver at a range of 5 km. For this early arrival portion
of the time signatures, the agreement between the multipath
structure between the two methods is seen to be excellent in both
amplitude and arrival time.
To further examine the capability of the convolution procedure,
in Fig. 6 we compare both propagated waveforms at a range of
10 km. At this range, the pulses in the time window 0.0–0.5 s are
seen to contain more multipath arrivals than those observed in
Fig. 4 for the receiver at the 5-km range. The agreement between
the different numerical approaches is again excellent for the early
arrivals, but slight differences in amplitude between the two meth-
ods are noticeable for those pulses arriving at later times. The
detailed agreement for the early arrivals at the 10-km range is

Fig. 3. Coherent transmission loss (TL) comparison at 200 Hz between the wavenumber integration model SAFARI and the image model for the Pekeris waveguide.
232 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235

Fig. 5. Early arrival comparison between convolution and Fourier synthesis Fig. 6. Comparison of convolution and Fourier synthesis predictions of the Ricker
predictions of Ricker wavelet signals (f p ¼ 200 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a wavelet signals (f p ¼ 200 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a range of 10 km.
range of 5 km.

easier to see in Fig. 7 where the comparisons are shown on an

expanded time interval of 0.0–0.1 s.

3.2. Ricker wavelet (f p ¼ 100 Hz)

Next, we examine the convolution and Fourier synthesis meth-

ods at the same 5- and 10-km receiver ranges but for a lower-
frequency signal. In Fig. 8 we display the TL versus range curve
comparison between SAFARI and image solution for a Ricker wavelet
with a peak frequency f p ¼ 100 Hz. The effective bandwidth is
reduced from that of the f p ¼ 200-Hz spectrum to between 10 Hz
and 250 Hz. At this peak frequency, the coherent TL interference
pattern shows less variation with range than was evident for the
200-Hz case. The agreement between TL estimates is still very good
but small differences can be noted.
Following the same procedures described above for the 200-Hz
case, we show in Fig. 9 the time-signature comparison for a 0.0–
0.6 s time window. Again the reduced velocity of 1475 m/s was
used to follow the signals to the 5-km range. The early arrivals
are in very good agreement between the two methods, but the Fig. 7. Early arrival comparison between convolution and Fourier synthesis
predictions of Ricker wavelet signals (f p ¼ 200 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a
later arrivals indicate some amplitude differences. This is easier
range of 10 km.
to see in Fig. 10 which shows the results for an expanded 0.0–
0.2 s time window.
Finally, we show in Fig. 11 the time-signature comparison for [26,28–30,33–35]). For cb > c, this comes about by noting that for
the 100-Hz peak frequency wavelet at a range of 10 km. While grazing angles less than the critical angle, cos
1 ðc=cb Þ, the ampli-
the initial portion of the signatures still show excellent agreement tude of the reflection coefficient V b is near unity and only its phase
in relative amplitudes and arrival times, the trailing signals show varies significantly there. As a result, one can replace V b in the inte-
some amplitude deviations. Fig. 12 shows the initial arrivals for grand by jV b j expði arg V b Þ and incorporate this phase into the sta-
an expanded 0.0–0.2 s time interval. At this scale, it is seen that tionary phase evaluation (for a detailed analysis see [34]). As
the later pulses are also beginning to exhibit slight differences in pointed out by Tindle [29] however, this maneuver introduces
arrival times as well as amplitudes. caustics into the region 0 < z < h to which caustic corrections must
be applied in order to obtain accurate estimates of the propagated
3.3. Ray displacement and complex effective depth field, especially at low frequencies.
For image theory, it is more natural to approach ray displace-
Each term in the image sum in Eq. (17) can be derived by apply- ment in the context of the effective depth approximation [35,36].
ing a stationary phase evaluation to its exact integral representa- This concept involves replacing reflection off a penetrable sea-
tion (after replacing the Hankel function factor in the integrand bottom with reflection off a perfect reflector located below the
by its asymptotic approximation). The angles h‘j are the specular sea-bottom in order to adjust the locations of the images to take
grazing angles of the boundary-interacting rays on which the slant ray displacement into account.
ranges R‘j and reflection coefficients V ‘j depend. Improvements to Consider the geometry illustrated in Fig. 13. A ray at grazing
this approximation can be obtained by taking into account the angle h is reflected from the sea-bottom with a phase change
effects of ray displacement at the sea-bottom boundary (e.g., wðhÞ. This ray represents an infinite plane wave. The phase of the
 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235
Fig. 8. Coherent transmission loss (TL) comparison at 100 Hz between the wavenumber integration model SAFARI and the image model for the Pekeris waveguide.
Fig. 9. Comparison of convolution and Fourier synthesis predictions of the Ricker
wavelet signals (f p ¼ 100 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a range of 5 km.
reflected wave front AB can be exactly reproduced by placing a
perfectly-reflecting, pressure-release boundary at a depth Dh
below the actual sea-bottom boundary where it undergoes a phase
change of p. By straightforward geometry we find
wðhÞ þ p
DhðhÞ ¼ ; Dr ðhÞ ¼ 2 cot h DhðhÞ: ð21Þ
2k sin h
The effective depth Dh in Eq. (20) gives rise to a ray displacement Dr
as shown in Fig. 13. Weston [35] compares this lateral ‘‘wave shift”
to the ‘‘beam shift” resulting from incorporating arg V b into the sta-
tionary phase approximation for a specific Pekeris waveguide and
shows numerically that although they are similar in magnitude
they differ slightly for grazing angles below the critical angle.
Zhang and Tindle [36] generalize the effective depth approxi-
mation to include the loss encountered during the reflection pro-
cess by introducing a complex phase wðhÞ ¼
i log V b ðhÞ so that
the effective depth becomes
233
Fig. 10. Early arrival comparison between convolution and Fourier synthesis
predictions of Ricker wavelet signals (f p ¼ 100 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a
range of 5 km.

i log V b ðhÞ þ p
Dh ðhÞ ¼ : ð22Þ
2k sin h
Fig. 13 suggests that the effective depth of the ‘jth image is
accommodated by setting

z‘j ¼ z‘j þ 2jDh‘j : ð23Þ
One outcome of this representation is that for a lossy sea-bottom
this effective depth becomes a complex number (denoted here by
an asterisk). As discussed by Zhang and Tindle [36] this is necessary
for correct determination of the complex normal mode eigenvalues
(both propagating and leaky) by iteration for the Pekeris problem.
Because we are dealing with a point source and its images, the
angle-dependence of the reflected field to a given receiver from
the complex boundary is not the same as the one depicted in
Fig. 13. An iterative procedure for determining the true angle of
the reflected field for each image at the appropriate effective depth
234 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235
Fig. 11. Comparison of convolution and Fourier synthesis predictions of the Ricker
wavelet signals (f p ¼ 100 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a range of 10 km.
Fig. 12. Early arrival comparison between convolution and Fourier synthesis
predictions of Ricker wavelet signals (f p ¼ 100 Hz) in the Pekeris waveguide at a
range of 10 km.
Fig. 13. Geometry for plane wave reflection and the effective depth of a perfectly
reflecting boundary.
can be carried out in the following way. Starting with the specular
angle h‘j for the ‘jth image, one can use Eq. (22) to determine the

first approximation to Dh‘j to yield a new (complex) depth in Eq.
(23). From this (complex) image depth one can determine a new
(complex) grazing angle
 
h‘j ¼ tan
1 z‘j =r ; ð24Þ
that in turn allows us to use Eq. (22) again to determine a new effec-
tive depth via Eq. (23) and grazing angle in Eq. (24). This process can
be repeated until an appropriate tolerance has been met. In our
experience, only a few iterations are needed to accomplish this. In
this context, the iteration procedure for determining the effective
depth for each image is the eigenray analog of the iteration proce-
dure used by [36] for determining the eigenvalues (horizontal
wavenumbers) of the normal modes.
Once this procedure has been carried out for each range r of
interest, the field there can be computed by summing the images
as before but now with each bottom-interacting image (at a com-
plex depth) reflecting off a pressure-release boundary. As a result,
the waveguide field pðr; zÞ is now computed using Eq. (17) with R‘j
replaced with
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
R‘j ¼ r 2 þ z2 ‘j ; ð25Þ
and with V b ¼ V s ¼
1.
Unlike the ray displacement obtained asymptotically, the lat-
eral shift induced by the effective depth approximation does not
become singular at the critical angle. Moreover, no caustics are
introduced by this now range-dependent, perfectly-reflecting
interface. For single-frequency calculations, we have found this
procedure always improves the TL estimates. One does have to deal
with complex angles, complex depths, complex slant ranges and
complex times, however. Unfortunately, it is clear from Eq. (22)

that the complex depth Dh‘j for each image is frequency depen-
dent. This violates the constant-amplitude assumption for our con-
volution method as angles, depths, slant ranges and travel times
for the effective depth approximation vary with frequency at each
receiver range r.
Consequently, we choose not to pursue incorporating the
broadband effects of ray displacement for our calculations in this
paper. This is partly due to the fact that the standard image
treatment seems to account for the propagation in our Pekeris
waveguide with acceptable accuracy for the 100- and 200-Hz
peak-frequency Ricker wavelets. Addressing the minor disagree-
ments with the Fourier synthesis results is beyond the scope of this
paper. We find that the complex effective depth treatment,
however, sufficiently interesting to merit further consideration in
future work. The main point of comparing the Fourier synthesis
method to the convolution method is to demonstrate that, for
the Pekeris waveguide at least, comparable results can be obtained
with an equivalent convolution approach that needs much less
computational effort.
As for comparing the computing times involved in the above
calculations, we note that the Fourier synthesis method required
441 single-frequency calculations for the f p ¼ 200 Hz Ricker wave-
let source and 241 such calculations for the f p ¼ 100 Hz source.
These are to be compared to just one single-frequency calculation
for the image model at each range. It is difficult to provide an exact
meaningful comparison of computing times as the SAFARI pulse
module is provided in compiled FORTRAN while the image convolu-
tion is executed in GNU OCTAVE (compatible with MATLABÒ). Both
models were run on a 8-year-old laptop computer. The SAFARI code
took 20 s for the 441 frequencies while the image code took a frac-
tion of a second.
 R.L. Deavenport et al. / Applied Acoustics 150 (2019) 227–235
There is one final point to make on our image calculations. We
did compare our image-based transmission-loss estimates to those
obtained with the gaussian beam model BELLHOP [37]. At low graz-
ing angles (h < 25 ), the TL versus r curves agreed within a line
thickness for the 200-Hz peak-frequency case. This implies that
BELLHOP does not account for ray displacement in its normal docu-
mented mode of operation. Consequently, we are confident that
the image method approximation as used in this paper is an
acceptable ray-based model for validating the convolution method
as described herein for the specific Pekeris waveguide shown in
Fig. 2.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, a convolution-based, time-domain procedure was
described for simulating a transient signal propagating in a
shallow-water waveguide. In the frequency domain, the signal
was taken to have the form of a sum of eigenray arrivals whose
amplitudes could be taken to be constant over the effective fre-
quency band of the source. In this case, only a single-frequency
propagation run is required at the range of the receiver: the
frequency-dependent part of the total signal is contained in the
time phasor and is readily incorporated into the medium’s impulse
response before inverting via an inverse Fourier transform. This is
in contrast to the usual Fourier synthesis method of generating
bandlimited signals in the time domain: by running a single-
frequency model many times at a set of frequencies across the
band, filtering by the source spectrum, and then taking an inverse
Fourier transform. Numerical examples were provided to compare
time signatures at receiver ranges of 5 km and 10 km for two
Ricker wavelet sources having peak frequencies of 100 Hz and
200 Hz, respectively. A numerical comparison of the two proce-
dures was shown to exhibit favourable agreement between these
synthetic signals for a Ricker wavelet in a particular lossy-
bottom, shallow-water Pekeris waveguide.
Future work will address the effects of a variable sound speed
profile in the water column as well as frequency-dependent eigen-
ray amplitudes. The former will require the use of a more capable
ray-based computer code e.g. [3,30,37,38]. For the latter we intend
to investigate sub-band processing (e.g. third-octave bands), where
the eigenray amplitudes in each sub-band can be considered to be
approximately independent of frequency. Such frequency depen-
dence can arise, for example, for a multilayered subbottom
structure.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of Dawn Vail-
lancourt, J. Hamilton, P.H. Hulton, and T.B. Carroll for funding this
research. Also thanks to Dr. Joseph Fayton for his careful review
and to J.M. Tattersall (formerly of NUWC Division Newport) for
introducing us to the bandlimited impulse response method.
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