Abstract
The high-frequency acoustic properties of seafloor sediments are very significant in seafloor study and underwater acoustic study field. In order to measure the sound speed and the attenuation for the small-scale sediment cores more accurately, this study developed a water coupled acoustic laboratory measurement system based on Richardson-Briggs technique. This method used the correlation comparison of waveforms received in sediment core and in identical reference tubes filled with water to measure sound speed and attenuation. The sound speed and attenuation of a clayey silt sediment sample were measured using the water coupled acoustic laboratory measurement system. This frequency dependence of the sound speed and attenuation showed that the clayey silt sediment has a weak positive sound speed dispersion, while the attenuation increases with a strong positive gradient within the measurement frequency range. This study also noted that the measured sound speed ratio match well with the empirical equations from literature. The measured attenuation factor data can fall in the Hamilton’s empirical prediction range.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Liu Xiaolei for his assistance of the sediment sampling, and Sun Zhiwen for his assistance of the acoustic measurement. We appreciate very much the remarks of the reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.