Measurement of sound absorption by underwater acoustic material using pulse-separation method

An alternative pulse-separation method is presented for measuring the sound absorption at normal incidence of an underwater acoustic material in a water-filled impedance tube. A damped sine pulse was generated in the water-filled impedance tube with a regular waveform and a short duration time of approximately 1 ms. During the generation of the pulse, the inverse filter principle was used to compensate for the transducer response. In addition, the effects of the characteristics of the tube termination can be eliminated during the generation of the pulse to obtain a single plane pulse wave in the impedance tube, which is a necessary condition for this technique. Measurements of the sound absorption coefficient of the rubber material and the reflection coefficient from a water/air interface were used to verify the pulse-separation method.