Sound attenuation by barriers in underwater

Sound attenuation characteristics of barrier for underwater sound propagation was investigated through a reduced scale cistern experiment. From the observed data for a thin barrier, it was found that the sound attenuation characteristics in underwater is almost the same as that in the air, which has been obtained in the noise control engineering field. Next, a useful functional form was derived for predicting the sound attenuation in underwater and it's effectiveness was confirmed experimentally by applying it to the data measured in an actual sea area. Furthermore, a possibility for the prediction of sound attenuation value in the case of a finite wide barrier was considered as well. As a result, sound attenuation characteristics for the wide barrier were understood by a double diffraction process.