Acoustic scattering from a suspension of flocculated sediments

MacDonald, Iain T.; Vincent, Christopher E.; Thorne, Peter D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4261-0937; Moate, Benjamin D.. 2013 Acoustic scattering from a suspension of flocculated sediments. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 118 (5). 2581-2594. 10.1002/jgrc.20197

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jgrc.20197

Abstract/Summary

A series of controlled laboratory experiments have been conducted to investigate the backscatter of high frequency sound (3-5 MHz) from suspensions of fine sediment in its unflocculated (primary) state and at various levels of flocculation. The size and fall-velocity distribution of the flocs was determined using an optical system and a settling tube, thus allowing floc density to be determined. The measurements have conclusively demonstrated that the acoustic properties of the flocculated particles are not solely controlled by the primary particles; some aspect of the floc structure is influencing the scattering characteristics. The overall trend is for the form function (Ks) to increase as the degree of flocculation increase. This trend was also observed in the total scattering cross section (inline image) but this result is dependent on the assumption that viscous absorption for flocculated particles is negligible. The measured scattering properties are compared to the predicted values from two theoretical models, the elastic (ES) and fluid sphere (FS) models. While the results show that, in their current form, neither model is capable of adequately representing the scattering characteristics of a suspension of flocculated particles, the two models did provide upper (ES) and lower (FS) bounds to the measurements. In terms of the operational use of acoustics to measure the concentration of flocculated sediments, empirical relationships could be fitted to the observations but, until a better theoretical understanding of how sound interacts with flocculated particles is achieved, the fitting of such empirical relations may be somewhat premature.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1002/jgrc.20197
ISSN:	21699275
Date made live:	14 May 2013 12:39 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/501906

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1002/jgrc.20197

ISSN:

21699275

Date made live:

14 May 2013 12:39 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/501906