Iterative calculation of reflected and transmitted acoustic waves at a rough interface

A rigorous iterative technique is described for calculating the acoustic wave reflection and transmission at an irregular interface between two different media. The method is based upon a plane-wave expansion technique in which the acoustic field equations and the radiation condition are satisfied analytically, while the boundary conditions at the interface are satisfied numerically. The latter is accomplished by an iterative minimization of the integrated squared error in the boundary conditions by a conjugate gradient technique, leading to a converging and relatively simple scheme. The plane interface result can be used as starting value. Although in principle the method is rigorous, numerical examples show that in practice there is a lower bound on the error in the boundary conditions which can be achieved.<>