Underwater acoustic scattering from a radially layered cylindrical obstacle in a 3D ocean waveguide

A solution based on coupled mode expansions is presented for the 3D problem of acoustic scattering from a radially layered penetrable cylindrical obstacle in a shallow-water plane-horizontal waveguide. Each cylindrical ring is characterized by a general, vertical sound speed and density profile (ssdp), the ocean environment around the obstacle can be also considered horizontally stratified with a depth-arbitrary ssdp, and the bottom is assumed to be rigid. The total acoustic field generated by an harmonic point source is represented as a normal-mode series expansion. The expansion coefficients are calculated exploiting the matching conditions at the cylindrical interfaces, which results in an infinite linear system. The system is appropriately truncated and numerically solved by using a recursive relation, which involves the unknown coefficients of two successive rings. Results concerning the transmission loss outside and inside obstacles consisting of three cylindrical rings are given for a typical depth-dependent ocean sound-speed profile. The presented solution can serve as a benchmark solution to the general problem of 3D acoustic scattering from axisymmetric inhomogeneities in ocean waveguides at low frequencies.