Abstract:
Until recently, sound propagation modelers have treated the ocean bottom as an acoustic or elastic medium. This paper will discuss some recent progress in poro-elastic propagation modeling. Biot's theory of poro-elasticity has been incorporated into normal mode, wave-number integration, and parabolic equation models. Models have also been developed for poro-acoustic media, the limit of Biot's theory in which shear waves are neglected. A series of benchmark problems that emphasize poro-elastic and poro-acoustic effects has been designed to test the accuracy of the models and their implementations. In addition to the propagation models, techniques have been developed for solving scattering problems and inversion problems involving poro-elastic layers. [Work supported by ONR.]