Modelling underwater noise mitigation of a bubble curtain using a coupled-oscillator model

Abstract

Bubbles can inhibit underwater sound transmission, owing to density and acoustic-impedance mismatches and associated reflection and absorption of sound waves, and also scattering due to bubble-acoustic resonances. Thus, bubble curtains have been used to reduce underwater noise propagation. For the present study, a discrete bubble model (DBM) utilising self-consistent coupled-oscillator theory was developed to model noise mitigation by bubble curtains. The DBM is inherently able to handle polydisperse-sized and anisotropically-distributed bubbles. The DBM was shown to accurately predict the bubble collective resonance frequencies of 1D line, 2D planar and 3D complex bubble cloud configuration..