Analysis of Acoustic Properties of the Seafloor Sediments in the South China Sea

As carriers of sea and its resources, seafloor sediments become the focus of geoacoustics and underwater acoustics. In this paper, the laboratory acoustic measurement method is introduced to obtain the acoustic properties of seafloor sediment. And the sound propagation mechanism is discussed, thus a wave propagation model of freedom factor and coupled-frame elastic modulus based Men-Chen model, FCMCM, is presented to improve the Men-Chen model. Based on FCMCM, the relationship between frequency and porosity with acoustic attributes is analyzed, and distribution of compressional wave speeds of shallow sediments in the South China Sea is interpreted to get the absolute values of relatively theoretical errors within 6 percent. All the above indicates the validity of acoustic method and the FCMCM in the analysis of acoustic properties of seafloor sediments.