Ultrasonic Wave Propagation on an Inclined Solid Half-Space Partially Immersed in a Liquid

Abstract

The interaction between a bounded ultrasonic beam and a liquid wedge over a solid half-space is studied theoretically as well as experimentally. A semi-analytical technique called Distributed Point Source Method (DPSM) is adopted for modeling the ultrasonic field in a wedge-shaped fluid structure on a solid half-space. This study is important for analyzing and understanding the propagation of ultrasonic waves used for underwater communications and inspections. A better understanding of the elastic wave propagation in water and in submerged marine strata near the seashore requires extensive investigations of such problem geometries. The semi-analytical technique used in this dissertation considers a bounded acoustic beam striking a fluid-solid interface between a fluid wedge and a solid half-space. Solution of this problem is beyond the scope of the currently available analytical methods when the beam is bounded. However, it is important to model the bounded beams because, in all underwater communications and inspections, bounded beams are used. Currently, only numerical method [Boundary Element Method (BEM) or Finite Element Method (FEM)] based packages (e.g., PZFlex) are in principle capable of modeling ultrasonic fields in such structures. However, these packages are not very accurate and are very CPU-intensive for high-frequency ultrasonic problems. At high frequencies, FEM- and BEM-based packages require huge amount of computation memory and time for their executions that the DPSM technique can avoid. The effect of the angle variation between the fluid-solid interface and the fluid wedge on the wave propagation characteristics is studied and presented.