J.C. Piquette - Some New Techniques For Panel Measurements (1996)

Some new techniques for panel measurements
Jean C. Piquette
Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Underwater Sound Reference Detachment, P.O. Box 568337, Orlando,
Florida 32856-8337
~Received 12 December 1995; accepted for publication 30 May 1996!

Several methods for improving conventional panel measurement methodology are described.
Methods for reducing the low-frequency cutoff of conventional echo-reduction tests, and for
simulating impulse-response testing are presented. The new methods are demonstrated to reduce the
low-frequency cutoff for conventional echo-reduction tests by an octave ~to 5 kHz!, and evidence is
provided that suggests that lowering by another octave is feasible. The simulated impulse-response
testing was achieved by radiating, through the use of exact transient-suppression methods,
broadband interrogating waves, centered on 10 kHz, of single-cycle and half-cycle duration. A new,
approximate method of staged transient suppression that permits significantly enhanced projector
output relative to that achieved with exact transient suppression is described. The staged
transient-suppression method is applicable to the improvement of insertion-loss tests. Finally, a new
method for correcting edge-diffraction-contaminated insertion-loss measurements of panels
fabricated of decoupling materials is presented. The new method was demonstrated in the frequency
range of 500–11 000 Hz, and utilizes staged transient suppression in its implementation.
PACS numbers: 43.58.Vb, 43.20.Fn, 43.20.Ye, 43.20.Px @SLE#
INTRODUCTION frequency limit at which conventional echo-reduction testing

can be performed.
Panel testing is a standard method in which the perfor- Another capability that transient-suppressed projector
mance of candidate passive materials for underwater appli- operation permits is simulated impulse-response testing.
cations is assessed.1 Owing to matters of practicality, the Since it is possible with this method to project into the water
frequency range of validity of such tests is limited. For ex- a single-cycle waveform, and even to project a one-half cycle
ample, such tests usually are intended to assess what the waveform, a relatively broadband signal can be radiated
performance of a laterally infinite sample would be, whereas from which the impulse response of a sample panel might
actual measurements must obviously be performed on possibly be inferred.
samples of finite size. The maximum sample size is deter- Transient-suppressed projector operation also has appli-
mined not only by the issues of difficulty of fabrication and cation to the area of insertion-loss measurements.1 Utilizing
of cost, but also by limitations presented by available test a projector driven in the transient-suppressed mode is desir-
facilities. The need to restrict sample size is one factor in able in order to reduce through-the-panel transmitted-wave
determining the low-frequency limit to which panel tests can buildup time, since such buildup time is necessarily the sum
reliably be conducted. At the Underwater Sound Reference of the source turnon transient interval plus the sample self-
Detachment of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center ~NUWC- transient ~intrinsic! buildup interval. Unfortunately, operat-
USRD!, located in Orlando, Florida, conventional panel tests ing a projector in the transient-suppressed mode typically
are usually restricted to frequencies above 10 kHz for typical results in a substantial reduction of the maximum output am-
panels of 76-cm376-cm lateral dimensions. plitude, and the reduction can exceed 30 dB with respect to
The purpose of the present article is to describe efforts at that achievable with an ordinary gated-sine drive voltage.
extending the conventional panel-test frequency range below Such a reduction in amplitude would typically be unaccept-
10 kHz. Most of the new methods described here are based able in insertion-loss tests, where the sample of interest often
on the availability of a relatively new procedure for driving produces a reduction in amplitude exceeding 30 dB. A modi-
the transducer that produces the interrogating wave in the fication of the transient-suppression method is considered
transient-suppressed mode.2–4 This mode of transducer op- here in which a much lower reduction in projected amplitude
eration permits the projection into the water of an acoustic results, provided one is willing to accept at least a small
waveform that is a reasonable approximation of a gated sine turnon transient interval. ~Note that a modest turnon transient
wave, i.e., a waveform that begins and ends at zero crossings is not as critical an issue in insertion-loss tests as it is in
of the sine, without the usual turnon and turnoff transients. echo-reduction tests in which incident and reflected wave-
This capability permits, in the case of echo-reduction mea- form overlap can occur.! The approximately transient-
surements, closer placement of the detecting hydrophone to suppressed projected waveform is achieved by applying the
the sample panel, without the attendant waveform overlap waveform-shaping components in stages, and then suddenly
that would occur if the source transients were not controlled. removing them.
This capability also permits the lowering of the low- Finally, a new measurement method is described for
3227 J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100 (5), November 1996 3227
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insertion-loss measurements of decoupling materials. Owing forms. The specified parameters also require that the
to the very low sound speed that is typical of materials used reflected-wave gate be placed to start no earlier than 0.5 ms
to fabricate decouplers, the transmitted wave passing through after the first arrival of the incident wave at the hydrophone.
such a sample often must be measured in the presence of the If a one-cycle gate width is used, a simple time-of-flight
edge-diffracted wave, even for samples of relatively modest calculation shows that panel-edge diffraction will be in-
thickness. A method for directly measuring the diffraction cluded in the reflected-wave gate. In addition, since the pro-
contamination, and analytically subtracting it from edge- jector has an intrinsic turnon transient of 0.05 ms, placing the
diffraction contaminated insertion-loss tests, is described reflected-wave gate only 0.05 ms after the initial reception of
here. Staged transient suppression is used in implementing the reflected wave might not allow sufficient time for panel
this method. buildup response to occur. Owing to the combined influences
In Sec. I a description of the application of exact of source turnon and turnoff transients, and the arrival of the
transient-suppression methods to the improvement of echo- edge-diffracted wave, even utilizing modern signal-
reduction testing is presented. The simulated impulse- processing methods that permit a less than full-cycle gate
response application is presented in Sec. II. The staged width would not permit a satisfactory steady-state reflected-
transient-suppression method is described in Sec. III, and the wave measurement. That is, even if a half-cycle width
new technique for correcting edge-diffraction contaminated reflected-wave gate is utilized, one is still left with the unde-
decoupler measurements is presented in Sec. IV. A summary sirable decision to place this gate either on the first half-cycle
and the conclusions are given in Sec. V. of reflected wave which arrives after the 0.05-ms waveform
portion associated with projector turnon transient ~a wave-
I. TRANSIENT-SUPPRESSED ECHO-REDUCTION form portion that is still not in steady state owing to panel
MEASUREMENTS buildup!, or to place this gate on the second half-cycle of
The standard echo-reduction measurement configuration reflected wave that arrives after the turnon transient ~a wave-
for 76-cm376-cm panels, as tested in the Anechoic Tank form portion that is corrupted by panel-edge diffraction!. For
Facility of NUWC-USRD, consists of a projector situated at these reasons, it is desirable to conduct conventional echo-
a 170-cm offset from the test panel and a detecting hydro- reduction panel testing utilizing transient-suppressed incident
phone situated at a 34-cm offset from the panel, in the re- waves, since such waves exhibit virtually no turnon, or turn-
flection region. The low-frequency cutoff for echo-reduction off, transients.
measurements acquired using this configuration is 10 kHz. Utilizing a transient-suppressed incident wave, as de-
This cutoff frequency is established by the requirement to scribed in Refs. 2–4, conventional echo-reduction panel test-
permit clear separation in time of the incident and reflected ing can be improved in two possible ways. First, it is pos-
waves to allow independent gating on each of these wave- sible to drastically reduce the hydrophone-to-panel offset,
forms. Achieving the required separation in time of the thus increasing the path difference between the reflected and
waves is determined primarily by two factors: ~1! the wave- edge-diffracted waves ~and thus the edge-diffracted wave is
length of the waveforms and ~2! the transient response ~Q! of more readily discriminated against!. This closer placement
the projector. For a valid measurement of the incident wave, permits the low-frequency cutoff to be reduced by an octave,
it is necessary to place the incident-wave gate after the to 5 kHz, yet the edge-diffracted wave can still be entirely
completion of the projector turn-on transient. For a valid avoided. Second, if the same hydrophone-to-panel offset that
measurement of the reflected wave, it is necessary that the is used in standard panel testing is retained, time-of-flight
incident waveform not overlap the reflected waveform. Of calculations show it is then possible to reduce the low-
course, it is also necessary that the reflected-wave gate be frequency cutoff to 2.5 kHz, although, in this case, edge
placed such that it avoids the reflected-wave transients that diffraction is not avoided. In what follows, we examine only
are associated both with the source turn-on transient and with the first case.
the required sample ‘‘buildup’’ time, i.e., the time required The method was investigated experimentally using a 76-
for the sample to respond to the incident wave. For the setup cm376-cm steel-plate sample of 0.95-cm ~3/8 in.! thickness.
used at NUWC-USRD, the standard source turn-on transient In view of the virtually zero-duration transients that are as-
is of approximately 0.05-ms duration, while the turnoff tran- sociated with a transient-suppressed waveform, it was deter-
sient is of approximately 0.25-ms duration. ~Although the Q mined that a hydrophone-to-panel offset of 15 cm, and a
associated with turnon and turnoff are the same, the turnoff maximum pulse duration of 0.2 ms, could be used.
transient interval exceeds the turnon transient interval owing Transient-suppressed measurements of the echo reduction of
to the fact that the influence of the transient is greater in the the test sample were carried out over the frequency interval
absence of the driving sinusoid, as is the case during source of 5–15 kHz, at frequency increments of 100 Hz.
turnoff.! In order to permit a standard one-cycle measure- A comparison of theoretical and experimental wave-
ment of each of the waves of interest, an incident-wave forms is provided in Fig. 1, where the solid line is experi-
0.15-ms pulse ‘‘length’’ ~more strictly correct would be to mental data and the dashed line is theory. Test frequency in
call this a pulse ‘‘duration’’! is used. In view of the fact that this example is 9900 Hz. The single-cycle waveform ap-
a 34-cm hydrophone offset has associated with it an approxi- proximately situated between data point 200 and data point
mately 0.45-ms hydrophone-to-panel round-trip travel time, 800 is the transient-suppressed incident waveform. The two
the specified parameters allow for an approximately 0.05-ms waveforms depicted between approximately data point 1200
separation in time between the incident and reflected wave- and data point 2100 are the experimental and theoretical re-
3228 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 100, No. 5, November 1996 Jean C. Piquette: Panel measurements 3228
FIG. 1. Comparison of experimentally measured combined incident ~initial 3
FIG. 2. Comparison of theoretical echo reduction for a steel plate of 8-in.
1
full-cycle pattern! and reflected ~secondary 1 2-cycle pattern! waveform thickness to experimentally measured echo reduction for a particular set of
~solid line! with theoretically computed reflected waveform ~dashed line!. measurement gates.
flected waves. Note that, despite the fact that the incident useful in making qualitative assessments of sample perfor-
wave is a nearly perfect steady-state single-cycle waveform, mance. For example, if one is interested in assessing the
the reflected waveform nonetheless displays a significant amount of distortion caused by an acoustic window, such
transient behavior, as is evidenced by the considerable dif- assessment is more readily done with a test signal of short
ference in amplitude between the first and second half cycles duration. ~In a signal of long duration, various contributions
of this wave. The close agreement of the theoretical and to the signal shape overlap in time so that it may become
experimental reflected waves demonstrates that the transient impossible, for example, to determine when a boundary,
behavior of the reflected wave is not due to experimental such as a panel edge, first contributes to the signal.! Unfor-
error, but rather is attributable to waveform buildup. This tunately, a true ‘‘impulse’’ is a signal of infinite bandwidth,
buildup behavior can be understood from the point of view which is an ideal that cannot be achieved in practice. How-
that the panel tends to act as a high-pass filter with respect to ever, an impulse might be satisfactorily simulated using a
the reflected wave. ~That is, high-frequency waves are re- broadband signal, especially if much of the energy in the
flected, or ‘‘passed’’ to the reflection region, much more proposed simulating signal is centered around a frequency of
readily than are low-frequency waves.! The reflected wave- interest.
form can therefore be interpreted as the distorted version of One possible way of achieving a broadband signal is by
the incident wave that arises as a result of passing the inci- generating a transient-suppressed waveform of short dura-
dent wave through the high-pass filter represented by the tion. Two possibilities are ~1! a single-cycle sinusoid and ~2!
panel. a half-cycle sinusoid, each of which can readily be produced
Results for the entire frequency range examined in the
echo-reduction measurements are summarized in Figs. 2 and
3, in which measured echo-reduction values are compared
with theoretical values. ~The theoretical curves in these fig-
ures are computed purely on the basis of reference values of
the material properties of the steel plate of interest.! The only
differences between the conditions for the measurements
presented in each of the two figures are that slightly different
reflected-wave gate positions were utilized in each case. As
can be seen, the echo reduction is generally overestimated in
the measurements presented in Fig. 2, but is generally under-
estimated in the measurements presented in Fig. 3. However,
the measurement errors are generally of the order of less than
1 dB, which is within the generally accepted tolerance for
panel testing.
II. SIMULATED IMPULSE-RESPONSE TESTING

The impulse response is a standard concept for evaluat- 3
FIG. 3. Comparison of theoretical echo reduction for a steel plate of 8-in.
ing system performance. The response of a system to an
thickness to experimentally measured echo reduction for another particular
arbitrary input can be determined if the impulse response is set of measurement gates, distinct from that used to acquire the data pre-
known. A short-duration signal such as an impulse is also sented in Fig. 2.
FIG. 4. Single-cycle transient-suppressed interrogating waveform of 10-kHz
FIG. 5. Half-cycle transient-suppressed interrogating waveform of 10-kHz
center frequency.
center frequency.
using the methods of Refs. 2–4. Each of these types of wave-

panel present and with the panel removed. Material proper-
forms is depicted, respectively, in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. The
ties of the sample were determined by least-squares fitting of
single-cycle waveform of Fig. 4 has the advantage of excel-
the captured waveforms to a layered model of the sample.
lent turnoff transient control, i.e., the residual waveform am-
plitude visible after the single-cycle waveform is of very low ~The interested reader is directed to Ref. 5, and references
amplitude relative to the amplitude of the primary waveform. within, for a more detailed description of the method.! The
However, it has the disadvantage of having a full cycle time theoretical transmitted waveforms ~denoted as ‘‘extrapo-
width, and hence has a bandwidth that is less than the half- lated’’ in Figs. 6 and 7! were then deduced using ONION-
cycle case. The half-cycle waveform of Fig. 5 has the advan- method properties.
tage of narrowness in time, and hence greater bandwidth As can be seen in Figs. 6 and 7, agreement between
than the single-cycle case, but the residual waveform has a measured and extrapolated waveforms is quite good, at least
greater amplitude in this case; i.e., the level of turnoff- until the end of the primary portions of the waveforms. In
transient control achieved here is not as great as that seen in both cases, measured and extrapolated waveforms agree until
the single-cycle case. ~It is, of course, more difficult to pro- about data point 1150, where distortion appears to arise.
duce a half-cycle waveform precisely because of its greater Time-of-flight calculations suggest that signals from the
bandwidth, necessitating model fidelity over a greater fre- panel edges which propagate through the water would have
quency interval.! insufficient time to influence the results by data point 1150.
In order to investigate the utility of simulated impulse
However, since this panel incorporates materials with a
testing, the waveforms depicted in Figs. 4 and 5 were each
sound speed well in excess of that of water, this may indicate
allowed to interact with a panel of an acoustic-window ma-
the presence of an edge-effect wave traveling interior to the
terial. The resulting waveforms transmitted through the panel
are presented in Figs. 6 and 7. Theoretical waveforms are panel and then reradiating into the fluid. ~This result may
also shown. Because the sample was of a complex multilayer also be attributable to some internal inhomogeneity.! Figures
design, the material properties used to compute the theoreti- 6 and 7 illustrate the utility of using transient-suppressed
cal waveforms were determined by performing an ONION waveforms of short duration, since the rather small wave-
measurement of the panel.5 Thus, the panel was first interro- form distortions visible here might be impossible to detect in
gated by driving the source in the ordinary way using a the nonzero background of signals of greater duration. The
stepped-sine drive. Waveforms were captured in the reflec- visibility of the distortions is greatly enhanced by the rapid
tion and transmission regions of the panel both with the turnoff exhibited by the interrogating waves.
FIG. 6. Experimentally measured transmitted single-cycle waveform ~solid FIG. 7. Experimentally measured transmitted half-cycle waveform ~solid
line! compared with extrapolated transmitted waveform ~dashed line! using line! compared with extrapolated transmitted waveform ~dashed line! using
ONION-derived material properties. ONION-derived material properties.
III. ‘‘STAGED’’ TRANSIENT SUPPRESSION ducer, it is simple and therefore useful for developing the
ideas. The concepts, however, are also applicable to realistic
One difficulty with the use of the transient suppression equivalent circuits and devices.
method is that the drive signals necessary to the method It has been shown2 that the LCR circuit can be driven in
incorporate portions that grow in time, such as ramps, which transient-suppressed manner if a pedestal voltage of a suit-
can severely limit the amplitude of the final waveform radi- able level is applied along with the sinusoidal drive voltage.
ated ~see Ref. 2!. Even the presence of a pedestal is undesir- ~A suitable phase shift must also be applied to the sinusoidal
able, since most power amplifiers cannot pass a dc signal.
The difficulty can perhaps be appreciated by examining Fig.
8, in which a typical transient-suppressing driving-voltage
waveform is presented. ~The waveform has been scaled to
unity maximum amplitude, as is required by most arbitrary
waveform generators.! As can be seen, the sinusoidal com-
ponent of the drive is an unfortunately small fraction of the
overall waveform amplitude. This results in a much lower
output amplitude than would be achieved if the transducer
were driven instead with a conventional stepped sinusoid. It
is therefore worthwhile to consider methods that might
eliminate, or reduce, the requirement to include the undesir-
able pedestals and ramps ~and even parabolas!, from the
transient-suppressing drive signal. One such method involves
‘‘staging’’ the transient-suppressing signal components ~i.e.,
turning the components on, and off, in stages! in such a way
that no such signal components must be present for an in-
definite interval.
A simple example which will be used here to develop
FIG. 8. Typical transient-suppressing drive using exact calculational meth-
the concept of drive staging is that of the LCR circuit. Al- ods. In this case, the drive is that which would be applied to an F43 trans-
though the LCR circuit is not a very good model of a transducer to produce a transient-free 10-kHz signal of 1-ms duration.
component.! In essence, a pedestal component of the proper given in Ref. 2, Eq. ~6!, but also note that zero pedestal is
level causes the circuit to ring in a manner that is entirely applied for time t.0 in the present case.
complementary to the ring induced by the sinusoidal compo- Although this method for achieving a transient-
nent so that, when these two drive components are applied suppressed output achieves the desired goal of eliminating
simultaneously, the two induced rings precisely cancel one the pedestal in the final drive, it still has the undesirable
another. property that the pedestal must be pre-applied for a period
We now consider an alternate method for achieving the sufficiently long to allow any transients to die. However,
same result. The method is based on the idea that the same note that the proposed modification of the transient-
type of complementary ring can be made to arise in the cir- suppressing drive still represents an exact solution, in the
cuit by turning off a previously applied pedestal. That is, sense that precisely zero transient appears in the voltage
instead of starting with a circuit in which the capacitor is across the resistor at the moment of sinusoid application. If
uncharged, and then simultaneously applying a pedestal and we are willing to accept the appearance of some transient in
a sinusoid, let us consider instead that a negative pedestal has the output, the requirement that any transient-suppressing
been previously applied to the circuit, thus producing a non- voltage component be applied for an indefinite period can be
zero charge on the capacitor. If this pedestal is then released avoided. ~Since the application of the exact solution to any
at the same moment that a sinusoid is applied, the same real device never results in the total elimination of the tran-
transient-canceling ring that is complementary to that in- sient, owing to the approximate nature of the equivalent cir-
duced by the application of the sinusoid can be made to cuit, this is not a great concession.! We achieve the approxi-
arise, provided the level of the negative pedestal is suitably mate suppression of transients by applying the various
chosen. ~Again, a phase shift is also required in the sinusoid.! components of the transient-suppressing solution in stages.
In what follows, it will be shown that the appropriate pedes- Once again, it is convenient to explore the idea of staged
tal is one that is equal to the pedestal in the nonstaged case,2 transient suppression using the case of the simple LCR cir-
but of opposite sign. cuit as an example. As before, the methodology described for
Consider, then, the LCR circuit, to which a pedestal this circuit is also applicable to circuits of more complicated
given by2 design.
Let us recall that the alternative method for achieving
V dc52V 0 / v 0 RC, ~1! exact transient suppression for the LCR circuit described
has been applied sufficiently early that all transients have above involves the application of a negative pedestal at an
disappeared. Here, V 0 is the desired output amplitude of the indefinitely early time, and then the subsequent relaxation of
voltage across the resistor, v0 is the desired angular fre- that pedestal at the moment of application of the drive sinu-
quency, L is the inductance, C is the capacitance, and R is soid @see Eq. ~2!#. In the staged-drive approach, however, the
the resistance. @Note that Eq. ~1! expresses the negative of sinusoidal component of the drive is applied, and the pedes-
the pedestal component of the solution to the transient- tal component removed, before the transient associated with
suppression problem given by Eq. ~6! of Ref. 2.# In this case, the initial application of the pedestal has completely disap-
the current in the circuit is zero, and a charge in the amount peared. The idea is based on the fact that the transient in-
q(0)52V 0 / v 0 R is present on the capacitor. ~Here, t50 is duced by the pedestal is complementary to that introduced by
taken to be the time at which the sinusoid is to be applied to the sinusoid. Thus, it should be possible to ~1! first apply the
the circuit.! We seek to determine what drive must be ap- negative pedestal to the circuit and then ~2! at some rela-
plied at t50 such that no transients appear in the voltage tively short time interval after the initial negative-pedestal
across the resistor. application ~on the order of one-half of a resonance-
The calculation proceeds from this point in the same frequency cycle!, remove the pedestal and simultaneously
manner as that used to deduce the original transient- apply the sinusoid. If the level of the pedestal and the timing
suppressing drive as described in Ref. 2. That is, the voltage of the stages are well chosen, the resulting waveform should
desired to appear across the resistor, namely, V 0 sin~v0t!, is display a transient which is not much longer than one-half of
substituted into the circuit differential equation @see Ref. 2, a resonance cycle, or possibly one-half of a drive cycle. The
Eq. ~1!#, and the desired drive voltage V(t) is determined by calculation of the appropriate level for the pedestal follows
‘‘calculating backward’’ to the voltage source. The initial along much the same lines as that described above, with the
conditions i~0!50 and q(0)52V 0 / v 0 R, where i is current exception that the initial conditions are somewhat different.
and q is charge, are imposed. When this calculation is car- ~By ‘‘initial,’’ what is meant here, once again, is the moment
ried out, the final expression for the transient-suppressing of application of the sinusoid.! In particular, rather than im-
drive is found to be posing the initial conditions that i~0!50 and
q(0)52V 0 / v 0 R, as described above, the actual current in
R
H
2V 0 / v 0 RC, t,0,
V~ t !5 V0
~ L v 0 21/v 0 C ! cos~ v 0 t ! 1V 0 sin~ v 0 t ! , t.0.
~2!
the circuit and the actual charge on the capacitor at the mo-
ment the sinusoid is to be applied are determined. Assuming
that the moment of sinusoid application is known ~and this
determination will be discussed presently!, the determination
of the charge and current in the circuit is a straightforward
Note that the drive for t.0 in Eq. ~2! is identical to the analytical task using elementary methods for solving linear
sinusoidal component of the transient-suppressing drive differential equations.
FIG. 9. Typical staged transient-suppressing drive designed to produce a FIG. 10. Experimentally measured response of an F43 transducer to a 10-
10-kHz signal of 1-ms duration from an F43 transducer. The rounded wave- kHz stepped-sine driving voltage.
form region in the vicinity of data point 110 is caused by passing the drive
signal through a low-pass filter to reduce the abruptness of the change in
slope of the drive signal that occurs at this transition point between the less than the speed of sound in air! and by the relatively
pedestal component and the ramp component. small size of test samples that is often necessitated by con-
siderations of cost and/or test-facility sample-size limita-
The delay time between the initial pedestal application tions. For example, for a typical sample of 76-cm376-cm
and the sinusoid application in the case of the LCR circuit is 35-cm dimensions, the edge-diffracted wave arrives at the
taken to be simply one-half of a resonance cycle. In this hydrophone less than 41 cycle after the through-the-panel
simple case, the cancellation between the transients of each wave, assuming a sample sound speed equal to that of air
transient-suppressing component is exact, so that the staged and a 2-kHz test frequency. This is insufficient uncontami-
case displays one-half resonance cycle of transient in the nated data to make an accurate conventional measurement of
output. ~The exact cancellation of transients actually requires the insertion loss. Of course, matters are even worse for
the application of the sinusoid at a time of zero current. This lower material sound speeds, lower test frequencies, or
occurs at half-integral multiples of resonance-frequency greater sample thicknesses. In such cases, it is necessary to
cycles after the initial pedestal application.! The exact can- determine sample performance in the presence of edge con-
cellation in the staged-drive case arises for the same reasons tamination. Unfortunately, the amplitude of such edge con-
that it arose when the negative pedestal was applied in the tamination can be comparable to, or even exceed, the ampli-
distant past, namely, the transients associated with each drive tude of the directly transmitted wave.
component are precisely complementary. The only differ- The diffraction-reducing edge-effect mirror-wave
ence in the staged-drive case is that the charge on the capaci- ~DREEMwave! method is a technique for correcting edge-
tor at the moment of sinusoid application ~and pedestal re- diffraction-contaminated insertion-loss measurements by us-
moval! has different numerical values from that when the
negative pedestal is applied in the distant past.
A typical staged transient-suppressing drive for the F43
~driven at 10 kHz! is presented in Fig. 9. ~The F43 projector
is described in Ref. 6.! As can be seen by comparing Fig. 9
with Fig. 8, the overall amplitude of the sinusoidal compo-
nent of the transient-suppressing drive is much greater than
in the ‘‘exact’’ transient-suppression method. The experi-
mentally observed response of an F43 transducer to a 10-kHz
stepped-sine drive is shown in Fig. 10, and the observed
response to the staged transient-suppressing drive is shown
in Fig. 11 for comparison. An application of the staged
transient-suppression method to the improvement of panel
measurements is considered in Sec. IV.
IV. EDGE-DIFFRACTION REDUCTION: THE

DREEMWAVE METHOD
Insertion-loss measurements of decouplers are often dif-
FIG. 11. Experimentally measured response of an F43 transducer to a staged
ficult to perform owing to the extremely low sound speeds transient-suppressing driving-voltage designed to produce a 10-kHz steady-
exhibited by such materials ~the sound speeds can actually be 1
state response within 2 cycle of the driving frequency.
ing an experimental estimate of the amplitude and phase of
the contamination. This estimate is directly subtracted from
the insertion-loss measurements. The method is based on
Babinet’s principle.
The DREEMwave concept is based on the assumption
that the edge diffraction of a decoupling panel can be esti-
mated by measuring the diffraction from an ideally soft
sample having the same geometry as the sample of interest.
If it is possible to determine the edge diffraction from an
ideal sample, it is then possible to analytically subtract it
from measurements made on a sample of interest to deduce
what the sample performance would be in the absence of
diffraction. Babinet’s principle7 can be used to demonstrate
that this calculation is effectively equivalent to measuring
the sample of interest as if it were situated within an aperture
in a laterally infinite soft wall. ~In what follows, we consider
what might be called the strong version of Babinet’s prin-
FIG. 12. Measured insertion loss of an airbox of 76-cm376-cm35-cm di-
ciple, in which account is taken of both amplitude and phase, mensions, fabricated to include a GRP backplate of 1.27-cm thickness. Test
and not simply intensity.! temperature is 4 °C.
The strong form of Babinet’s principle asserts that the
sum of the wave field arising from the interaction of an in- sample. ~Of course, both amplitude and phase measurements
cident wave with a screen and that arising from its comple- of the waves is required.! It should not be too surprising that
ment is equal to the wave field that would be present in the the reverse process is also successful, viz., that edge-
absence of any screen. This formulation of the principle is diffraction-free insertion-loss results can be deduced by sub-
strictly valid for arbitrary screens if we assume that the sum tracting airbox measurements from small-sample measure-
is carried out including all amplitude and phase information ments. Nonetheless, there is still an experimental issue that
in the wave fields of interest. For the case of present interest, must be addressed. The measurements described in Ref. 8
the screen which is complementary to a finite-size soft were all carried out at atmospheric pressure. Since most de-
sample is the laterally infinite soft screen containing an ap- coupler measurements of interest are carried out under high
erture of dimensions identical to those of the sample. Thus, hydrostatic pressure, it is important to determine whether the
the finite soft sample can be combined with its complemen- desired reduction in the influence of edge diffraction persists
tary screen to form a laterally infinite ideally soft wall, a under such conditions. Since the samples of interest deform
screen through which no wave can penetrate. under the influence of increased hydrostatic pressure, this is
The insertion loss of a soft panel could be measured in not a trivial matter.
the absence of edge diffraction if it were possible to place the The primary reason that the issue of the effectiveness of
sample into a geometrically similar aperture in a laterally the present method under increased hydrostatic pressure is
infinite soft wall ~i.e., the complementary screen of Babinet’s not trivial is the fact that, although the sample is measured
principle!, since such a wall would shield out any waves that under increased hydrostatic pressure, it is not possible to
would otherwise diffract around the exterior of the sample. measure the airbox under the same conditions. This is so
While it is impossible to fabricate such a wall, it is possible because the airbox has relatively thin plastic walls, and even
to fabricate a finite screen that is complementary to the wall. relatively modest increases in hydrostatic pressure would
This complement is simply an ideally soft sample having the tend to crush it. However, it was found empirically that it
same geometry as the sample of interest. An experimental was possible to correct the measurements for dimensional
approximation to such an ideally soft screen has been fabri- changes through the determination of an appropriate phase
cated, and has been described previously;8 the terminology correction. Such a single-parameter correction is fast and
‘‘airbox’’ was introduced in Ref. 8 to describe it. On the easy to recalculate for each hydrostatic pressure used in a
basis of Babinet’s principle, we see that measuring the com- specific measurement of interest. The details of the calcula-
plex wave field behind the airbox and subtracting the result tion of this fairly straightforward phase correction will be
from measurements obtained from a sample of interest is omitted due to space considerations.
conceptually equivalent to measuring the sample of interest We now consider the application of the DREEMwave
as if it were placed in a laterally infinite soft wall. The sub- method to actual experimental data acquired in the larger of
tracted wave is a mirror image of the airbox edge wave; thus, the two anechoic tanks at NUWC-USRD. In what follows, it
we term this a mirror wave. The name of the present method should be understood that all airbox and sample data pre-
is based on the fact that the mirror wave, when combined sented were acquired using staged transient-suppressed inci-
with the sample measurement, results in the reduction of dent waves, as described in Sec. III.
edge contamination. As described earlier, the DREEMwave method involves
In Ref. 8 it was shown that edge-contaminated small- the subtraction of airbox edgewaves from edge-diffraction-
sample measurements could be deduced by adding airbox contaminated insertion-loss data acquired from the sample of
data to contamination-free measurements from a large interest. ~This subtraction accounts for both amplitude and
FIG. 13. Measured insertion loss of an airbox of 76-cm376-cm35-cm di- FIG. 14. Measured diffraction-contaminated insertion loss ~solid line! of a
mensions, fabricated to include a GRP backplate of 1.27-cm thickness. Test Microcell-on-GRP sample panel compared with the diffraction-reduced in-
temperature is 10 °C. sertion loss ~dashed line!. Test temperature is 10 °C. Hydrostatic pressure is
atmospheric.
phase.! Shown in Figs. 12 and 13 is the insertion loss mea- wave method in correcting the Microcell measurements for
sured for an airbox ~having an air cavity of 76-cm376-cm edge-diffraction contamination is similar to that which would
35-cm dimensions! at each of two test temperatures. @This have been obtained had the measurements been performed
particular airbox includes a backplate of 1.27-cm thickness, on the actual decouplers of interest.
fabricated from glass-reinforced plastic ~GRP!, in order to In Figs. 14–16 are presented the diffraction-
match a similar backplate that is also present on the sample contaminated, and DREEMwave-corrected, insertion-loss
of interest.# In Fig. 12, test temperature is 4 °C while in Fig. measurements of the Microcell material. Each figure repre-
13 test temperature is 10 °C. ~Of course, the airbox data were sents a different test pressure, but all the data presented in
acquired only at atmospheric pressure.! Although the com- Figs. 14–16 were acquired at 10 °C. ~The results are typical
putation of insertion loss requires only amplitude informa- of results obtained at other temperatures over the range of
tion for both the sample and for the incident wave,1 it should 4–22 °C.! The solid line denotes diffraction-contaminated
be understood that both amplitude and phase information data while the dashed line denotes corrected data. As can be
have been captured in the measurements summarized in Figs. seen, the method has significantly reduced the ‘‘spikiness’’
12 and 13. As can be seen, the insertion loss of the airbox at of the insertion-loss curves at all hydrostatic pressures, de-
each of the two test temperatures is similar at the lower fre- spite the fact that the sample has undergone significant de-
quencies but becomes different at the higher frequencies. formation. Thus, the phase-correction procedure mentioned
Insertion-loss measurements were next acquired from a above is successful in accommodating sample deformations.
sample panel fabricated from Microcell™, a commercially
available closed-cell foam manufactured by Sentinel Prod-
ucts, Hyannis, MA. ~Sample dimensions are 76 cm376
cm35 cm, and the sample is affixed to a GRP backplate of
1.27-cm thickness.! The only significant difference between
this material and the decouplers of interest is that Microcell
is considerably less stiff, and hence the sensitivity of Micro-
cell to changes in hydrostatic pressure is correspondingly
greater. However, the lesser stiffness of Microcell simply
means that a sample fabricated from this material will un-
dergo similar dimensional changes to those suffered by
samples of interest, but will do so at correspondingly lower
values of hydrostatic pressure. Hence, while measurements
of decouplers of interest typically cover the pressure range of
atmospheric–several hundred psi, the measurements made
on Microcell were restricted to the pressure range of
atmospheric–100 psi. The variation of the insertion loss of
Microcell over this more-restricted pressure range was ob-
FIG. 15. Measured diffraction-contaminated insertion loss ~solid line! of a
served to be substantially similar to that exhibited by decou-
Microcell-on-GRP sample panel compared with the diffraction-reduced in-
plers of interest over the wider pressure range. Thus, it is sertion loss ~dashed line!. Test temperature is 10 °C. Hydrostatic pressure is
reasonable to assume that the performance of the DREEM- 50 psi.
recting edge-diffraction contaminated insertion-loss mea-
surements of decouplers, the DREEMwave method, was pre-
sented.
The new panel-measurement methods described here
have been extensively tested on various panels evaluated at
NUWC-USRD, including windows, decouplers, and absorb-
ers. All of these methods are currently online and available
for customer use.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Permission to use the window-panel waveforms, pre-
sented here in connection with simulated impulse-response
testing, was kindly granted by Craig L. Cartwright, Research
and Development Manager of B. F. Goodrich Engineered
Polymer Products, Jacksonville, Florida. This work was
sponsored by the Office of Naval Research.
FIG. 16. Measured diffraction-contaminated insertion loss ~solid line! of a

1
R. J. Bobber, Underwater Electroacoustic Measurements ~U.S. Govern-
Microcell-on-GRP sample panel compared with the diffraction-reduced in- ment Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1970!.
2
sertion loss ~dashed line!. Test temperature is 10 °C. Hydrostatic pressure is J. C. Piquette, ‘‘Method for transducer transient suppression. I: Theory,’’
100 psi. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 1203–1213 ~1992!.
3
J. C. Piquette, ‘‘Method for transducer transient suppression. II: Experi-
ment,’’ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 1214–1221 ~1992!.
V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 4
J. C. Piquette, ‘‘Applications of the method for transducer transient sup-
pression to various transducer types,’’ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 94, 646–651
Several new applications of the method for transient ~1993!.
5
suppression to the improvement of panel measurements were J. C. Piquette, ‘‘Transmission coefficient measurement and improved
described. The method of exact transient suppression was sublayer material property determination for thick underwater acoustic
panels: A generalization and improvement of the ONION method,’’ J.
applied to the problems of ~1! reducing the low-frequency Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 468–477 ~1992!.
cutoff for echo-reduction testing and ~2! simulated impulse- 6
I. D. Groves, High-Pressure Piezoelectric Ceramic Transducer-USRD
response testing. A new, but approximate, method of staged Type F43, NRL Memorandum Report 6895 ~1969!.
7
A. Sommerfeld, Optics, translated by O. Laporte and P. A. Moldauer
transient suppression that permits significantly enhanced pro-
~Academic, New York, 1964!, p. 204, Eq. ~15!.
jector output relative to that achieved with exact transient 8
J. C. Piquette, ‘‘Direct measurements of edge diffraction from soft under-
suppression was also described. Finally, a method for cor- water acoustic panels,’’ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 3090–3099 ~1994!.

J.C. Piquette - Some New Techniques For Panel Measurements (1996)

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J.C. Piquette - Some New Techniques For Panel Measurements (1996)

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Some new techniques for panel measurements

~Received 12 December 1995; accepted for publication 30 May 1996!

INTRODUCTION frequency limit at which conventional echo-reduction testing

3227 J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100 (5), November 1996 3227

II. SIMULATED IMPULSE-RESPONSE TESTING

using the methods of Refs. 2–4. Each of these types of wave-

IV. EDGE-DIFFRACTION REDUCTION: THE

FIG. 16. Measured diffraction-contaminated insertion loss ~solid line! of a

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