ASA 124th Meeting New Orleans 1992 October

1pPAa6. Experimental study of sound scattering by elastic spheroids, and the excitation of their resonances.

X. L. Bao

H. Uberall

Phys. Dept., Catholic Univ. of America, Washington, DC 20064

Jan Niemiec

David Taylor Res. Ctr., Carderock, MD 20084-5000

Experimental studies of ultrasonic scattering by submerged steel spheroids, both oblate and prolate, and of steel spheres have been carried out using incident short, sinusoidally modulated pulses. The time waveform and frequency responses of the scattering objects are obtained directly from experimental data via numerical processing. The sound pulses are incident in the axial direction and also in discrete oblique directions at every 5 deg from the axis. The sound paths of surface waves generated on the objects, causing a chain of echo pulses, are identified, echo arrival times are shown to agree with the surface wave interpretation, and resonanc spectra are extracted using the Numrich--de Billy method. For explaining the resonance spectrum, the phase-matching principle is employed. The target strength of the objects is extracted from experiment using various methods of interpretation (specular echoes, elastic-wave echoes, total echo energy, or entrance windows), and compared to the geometrical target strength. It is shown that specular echoes alone are not sufficient to explain the entire target strength, and the presence of elastic surface waves makes itself felt here.