Archives of Acoustics, 50, 1, pp. 115-126, 2025
10.24425/aoa.2025.153649

Inference of Bubble Size Distribution in Sediments Based on Sounding by Chirp Signals

Xiaohong YANG
(1) Science and Technology on Sonar Laboratory; (2) Hangzhou Applied Acoustics Research Institute
China

Guangying ZHENG
(1) Science and Technology on Sonar Laboratory; (2) Hangzhou Applied Acoustics Research Institute; (3) Hanjiang National Laboratory
China

Fangyong WANG
(1) Science and Technology on Sonar Laboratory; (2) Hangzhou Applied Acoustics Research Institute; (3) Hanjiang National Laboratory
China

Fangwei ZHU
(1) Science and Technology on Sonar Laboratory; (2) Hangzhou Applied Acoustics Research Institute
China

Linlang BAI
(1) Science and Technology on Sonar Laboratory; (2) Hangzhou Applied Acoustics Research Institute; (3) Hanjiang National Laboratory
China

A method is proposed to estimate the bubble void fraction and bubble size distribution in marine sediments based on measured sound speed and attenuation data in gas-bearing sediments. The new inversion approach employs an effective density fluid model, corrected for gas bubble pulsations, as the forward model and represents the unknown gas bubble size distribution using a finite sum of cubic B-splines. An in situ acoustic monitoring experiment was conducted at an intertidal site in the Yellow Sea to investigate gassy sediments and validate the method. The measured sound speed and attenuation show significant fluctuations due to bubble resonance, with resonance peaks shifting to higher frequencies as water depth and hydrostatic pressure increase. This method simultaneously estimates the bubble size distribution from sound speed and attenuation data.
Keywords: gassy sediment; bubble size distribution; sound speed; attenuation; cubic B-splines
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Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International CC BY 4.0.

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DOI: 10.24425/aoa.2025.153649