An improved mode-tracing algorithm to compute dispersion curves of acoustic waveguides

Semi-analytical approaches for the description of dispersion in acoustic waveguides are based on root finding in a characteristic function. A mode-tracing algorithm helps to find all solutions of this problem by consecutively bracketing single roots. In this contribution we present a multistage and adaptive mode-tracing algorithm, which uses an adaptive step size for the prediction of consecutive solutions as well as an adaptive estimation of the search space around these predictions. Furthermore we present a validation stage to ensure the correlation between consecutive solutions alias waveguide modes.