Homer Bucker
NCCOSC, RTDE DIV, San Diego, CA 92152-5001
In many practical Navy acoustic systems, the sound field is strongly affected by three-dimensional variations in the ocean bottom. A theory is presented for a simple Gaussian beam propagation model that accounts for full three-dimensional effects of the ocean bottom. The Gaussian beam formulation is especially useful because it defines the sound field in terms of the travel times and angles of eigenrays that are needed for the analysis of acoustic systems. Examples will be shown for the standard wedge calculation [Deane and Buckingham, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 93, 1319--1328 (1993)] and for a wedge modified by an island and a knoll.