Lower turning point convegence zone in deep water with an incomplete channel

Abstract

In a deep sea sound channel, rays will bend due to the sound speed profile, and convergence zone will occur when the rays are intensive. Transmission loss in the convergence zone is smaller and it is conducive to acoustic detection and communication. Therefore the study of acoustic characteristics in convergence zone is always the focus of deep-sea acoustics. A long-range sound propagation experiment is conducted in the South China Sea. An equivalent broadband explosive sound source of 1 kg is placed at a depth of 200 m, and the hydrophone receives the data at 3146 m far. The processing and analysis of the experimental data indicate that there is a convergence zone below the sound channel axis in the incomplete deep channel. Compared with the upper turning point convergence zone near the surface, this convergence zone has a high convergence gain at a long distance. The caustic lines of refracted type and refracted surface-refleted type are determined by means of ray-normal mode theory. It is found that the location of the deep convergence zone observed in the experiment is consistent with the position of the refracted caustic line. It is proved that the convergence zone is a lower turning point convergence zone formed by the superposition of a large number of normal modes in the same phase, and it has a convergence effect at a certain depth below the sound channel axis in the deep sea. The formation conditions of the convergence zone and the influence of sound source depth on the caustic structure of the convergence zone are studied. The comparisons of the transmission loss and the width between the upper and lower turning point convergence zone at a long distance aremade. The analysis shows that the convergence gain in the seventh lower turning point convergence zone is still no less than 10 dB. The influence of the vertical structure of sound velocity on the lower turning point convergence zone is studied. The theoretical analysis results are in good agreement with the experimental data.