PRINCIPLE OF UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC IN DEPTH DETERMINATION

Adam Irwansyah
Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia
Irwansyah.adam@students.itera.itb.ac.id

Depth determination is a fundamental task for a hydrographer, which requires specific knowledge of the
medium, of underwater acoustics, of the plethora of devices available for depth measurement, of complementary
sensors for attitude and have measurement and proper procedures (IHO, 2010). There are many things that we
have to understand, but in this article we just discuss about underwater acoustic.

The depth obtained by :

d = c t (1)

with d is depth, c is sound speed underwater and t is elapsed time. Depth is vertically distance from tranducers
and seabed, Elapsed time is travel time since acoustic sound transmitte to the seabed till it back and sound speed
is a value that express how fast the sound wave or vibrations of particles pass through the medium. The most
important properties of water that control the speed of sound is temperature,pressure and salinity. Each physical
property of seawater relate to speed of sound because a change of temperature, pressure and salinity will causes
a change in modulus elcacticity (bulk modulus) and density.

Water properties over the entire water column be measured by CTD. CTD is an electronic instrument with
sensors for conductivity, temperature and depth.

Figure 1. CTD sample scale

With the information from CTD (salinity,temperature and pressure) it is possible to calculate the sound speed
based on Mackenzie (1981) empirical equations :

c(T,S,z) = a1 + a2T + a3T2 + a4T3 + a5(S 35) + a6z + a7z2 +a8T(S35) + a9Tz3 (2)

with, T = temperature (C), S = salinity (ppt), z = depth (m),

a1 = 1448.96, a2 = 4.591, a3 =5.304x102, a4 = 2.374x104, a5 = 1.340, a6 = 1.630x102, a7 = 1.675x107, a8 =
1.025x102 and a9 = 7.139x1013

References
International Association of Oil & Gas Producers and International Association of Geophysical Contractors.
(2008). Fundamentals of Underwater Sounds. London: International Association of Oil & Gas Producers.

International Hydrography Organization. (2010). Chapter 3 Depth Determination. In IHO, Manual on

Hydrography (pp. 01-02). IHO.

Reha Metin Alkan, Y. K. (2006). Sound Velocity Determination with Empirical Formulas & Bar Check. XXIII
FIG Congress (pp. 01-05). Munich: PS 4 - Commission 4 Posters.