Numerical Computation of the PO scattered field integral

equation

1 Problem Formulation

An incident scaler plane wave field uinc (r) = e−jkz , where r = (x, y, z) is illuminated on
the hard sphere of radius a located at the origin in a homogeneous medium whose surface
S is smooth and satisfies the hard boundary conditions. Within the PO approximation,
the scattered field from the hard sphere is represented by the Kirchhoff integral as

Figure 1: Physical configuration for plane-wave scattering by a acoustically hard sphere.

ˆ π ˆ 2π
0 0
s
u (r) = dθ dφ0 f (θ0 , φ0 )e−jkΦ(θ ) (1)
π
2
0

where

2jka2 cos ψ(r, r0 ) sin(θ0 )

f (θ0 , φ0 ) = , Φ(θ0 ) = R + a cos θ0 (2)
4πR

where ψ(r0 , r) is the angle between the local outward normal ν̂ to S at r0 = (a sin θ0 cos φ0
, a sin θ0 sin φ0 , a cos θ0 ), in our case ν̂ = r̂0 , and the unit vector leading from r0 to r =
(a sin θ cos φ, a sin θ sin φ, a cos θ), mathematically described as

r − r0
cos ψ(r, r0 ) = ν̂ · (3)
|r − r0 |

and R = |r − r0 |.
Therefore in the far zone (r → ∞) one can express

R = r − r0 · r̂ (4)

Therefore simplifying (3) in the far zone

r − r0 r − r0
cos ψ(r, r0 ) = ν̂ · ' ν̂ · = ν̂ · r̂ = r̂0 · r̂
|r − r0 | r
cos ψ(r, r0 ) = r̂0 · r̂ = (sin θ0 cos φ0 , sin θ0 sin φ0 , cos θ0 ) · (sin θ cos φ, sin θ sin φ, cos θ)
= sin θ0 sin θ cos φ0 cos φ + sin θ0 sin θ sin φ0 sin φ + cos θ0 cos θ
= sin θ0 sin θ cos(φ − φ0 ) + cos θ cos θ0 (5)

Hence substituting (5) and (4) we obtain

ˆ ˆ
s e−jkr π 0 2π 0 0 0 −jkΦ(θ0 )
u (r, θ, φ) = dθ dφ f (θ , φ )e (6)
r π
2
0

where
2jka2 (sin θ0 sin θ cos(φ − φ0 ) + cos θ cos θ0 ) sin(θ0 )
f (θ0 , φ0 ) =
4π
Φ(θ0 ) = −a sin θ0 sin θ cos(φ − φ0 ) − a cos θ cos θ0 + a cos θ0 (7)

Thus the goal is to develop a meshing technique solve for (6) numerically.

2 Meshing Techniques

In this section, we shall present two methods of numerically computing the integral (6).
We shall present two different schemes of meshing and then discuss the advantage of one
over the other.

2.1 Method 1

We start by discretization of θ ∈ [ π2 , π] in the following manner see[Fig. 2]

θm = (m − 1/2)∆θ + π/2 (8)

2π
wwhere ∆θ = Nθ
is the uniform width between each sampling points in θm and Nθ is the
total number of sampling points. A typical choice for Nθ ≈ 4ka. For the sake of fine
discretization in θ, we demand
λ
∆θa < (9)
20
 Figure 2: Discretization in θ .

Next, we shall discretize φ ∈ [0, 2π] along constant θm rings as

φnm = n∆φm (10)

2π
where ∆φm = N φm
is the uniform width between each sampling points in φnm on a
constant θm ring and Nφm is the total number of sampling points on a constant θm ring.
For the sake of fine discretization in φnm , we demand

λ
∆φm a sin θm < (11)
20

The above approach for discretization for φnm may not be able to sample the geometry of
the sphere at the poles (i.e θm ≈ π). Hence we approach a different technique to discretize
φm .

2.2 Method 2

While the discretization in θ remains the same as performed in Method 1, we improve the
discretization scheme in φ along the constant θm rings as demonstrated in Fig. 3

φnm = (n + Rm )∆φm (12)

where Rm is a random number uniform in [0, 1] which is randomly selected for each ”m”
so that it shifts the lattice of the m-ring with respect to the adjacent lattices. Rm is
introduced to break the symmetry of discretization along the constant θm rings. We also
 Figure 3: Discretization in φm at a constant θm ring.

introduce an improved method to discretize in ∆φm which satisfies

λ  
∆φm a sin θm < ∀θm ∈ π/2, 5π/6
10
λ  
∆φm < ∀θm ∈ 5/6, π (13)
5
λ
 
The choice of ∆φm provides a discretization of 10
in the range π/2, 5π/6 and a finer
discretization near the poles of sphere.

Accordingly Nφm is the total number of sampling points on a constant θm rings which
indeed depends on the discretization θm . The number of terms Nφm needed are
 
Nφm = 10ka sin θm ∀θm ∈ π/2, 5π/6
 
Nφm = 5ka ∀θm ∈ 5/6, π (14)

Therefore the scattered field is represented as Riemann sum as

Xθ n=N
m=N Xφm
s
u (r, θ, φ) ' f (θm , φnm )e−jkΨ(θm ) ∆φm ∆θ (15)
m=1 n=1