Nonlinear acoustical properties of suspended sediment

Maritime advances during recent years have shown the importance of and the need for development of ultrasonic methods for the investigation of the transport of suspended marine sediments in rivers and in coastal regions. Two main acoustical procedures have been developed and used for the investigations of suspended sediment qualities during the laboratory studies, (1) high frequency resonance backscattering and (2) attenuation acoustic spectroscopy. Both approaches are based on the same fundamental concepts, the interaction process between ultrasonic signals and suspended sediment particles. On this background a comprehensive study has been launched by the EC under the MAST Programme aiming at a characterization of suspended matter by acoustic remote sensing technique. The results of the initial theoretical studies of nonlinear properties of the suspended sediments are reported.