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Acoustic point-source reflection from an unperturbed seabed with a continuously varying density and sound speed profile in a fluid-like sediment layer overlying an elastic basement is considered in this paper. This fundamental problem has illuminated many interesting phenomena about the effects of sediment stratification on acoustic wave interactions with the seabeds. The analysis employs the analytical solutions for the Helmholtz equation in the sediment layer, in which the density and the sound speed are, respectively, described by three kinds of geological models. The results have demonstrated that the effects of sediment stratifacation are confined in a region in range, where the reflection field is dominated by the reflected ray bundles containing ray components with the grazing angles which are neither too steep nor too shallow. The effects of many other factors, such as frequency, sediment thickness, basement elasticity, on the reflection fields are investigated, in particular, the interface wave component may become important in the region close to the seabed, if the sediment thickness is relatively thin in comparison with the acoustic wave length.

The fatigue life of a Steel Catenary Riser (SCR) near its touch-down zone is substantially affected by its interaction with the seabed. Hence, accurate estimate of its fatigue life requires the understanding and realistic modeling of the interaction between them. The interaction between SCR and the seabed depends on many factors, such as soil properties, riser characteristics, and the development of trenching at the seafloor. Existing approaches for modeling the seabed in interaction with a SCR approximate the seabed soil by a linear or nonlinear spring and a dashpot which respectively represent the stiffness and damping of the soil. However, they do not take into account certain phenomena resulting from plastic deformation or degradation of the seabed soil, such as trenching. In this study, a more realistic approach is developed for simulating the interaction between a SCR and the seabed soil. In addition to the use of a realistic P-y curve (where P stands for the supporting or resistance force of the seafloor and y for the vertical penetration of the riser into the soil) to simulate the soil deformation during its interaction with a riser, it considers the development of a trench caused by continuous poundings of a riser on the seabed and then its feedback effect on the variation of the bending moment along the riser. In this study, it has been found that trenching underneath a SCR may decrease the maximum variation of bending moment near its touch-down zone. Since the variation of the moment dictates the fatigue damage to the SCR, the results based on this approach indicate that the trenching development at the seabed may increase the fatigue life of a SCR and therefore, it may have important application to the design of a SCR.

This work studies the application of laser structured light scanning to measure the small scale roughness of seabed. We use a CCD camera to capture the dislocation of laser light. The location of the laser light in pixel coordinates can be converted into world coordinates if the CCD camera is calibrated. We propose an algorithm which is analogous to the idea of longitudes/latitudes in map projection. The idea is to place a calibration board to be aligned with the laser scanning sheet. On the calibration board, grid points of 50mm are laid to represent the intersection of the longitudes and latitudes. The position of a point in pixel coordinates can be obtained by referring to its neighboring graticule. We designed three experiments to verify the accuracy of the system: The first experiment consists of measuring the distance between feature points on the calibration board, then check and correct the optic distortion effects of the lenses. The second experiment is to measure the slice of laser scanning image of a known object, and check the accuracy of our laser scanning system by measuring the object's height and width. In the third experiment, we measure an object which has a small height variety of its surface, to test the resolution of the system. The results indicate that the error is under 1%, only then that we proceed with the design, analysis, and measurement of artificial seabed. The artificial seabed model is made by using a 210mm * 210mm * 30mm acrylic board with sand ripples forms in the 150mm * 150mm square. The amplitude of the ripples is no higher/larger than ¡Ó 8mm, and no lower/smaller than ¡Ó 1.5mm. Contour map of the sand ripples would be plotted to analyze the results obtained from the measurements. The analysis is carried out by obtaining slice data from a reconstructed surface of the sand ripples, then compare it with the theoretical values. From the result we know that the error between sand dune ideal wave index and measured index is in the range of ¡Ó 2mm. To further test the system's tolerance with turbidity, we incorporate conditions which would alter environmental turbidity into the seabed experiments before running the experiments for analysis. The results show that the system is able to maintain a stable performance in an environment below 2.3 NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Unit), and the error between ideal sand dune ideal wave index and measured index is still in the range of ¡Ó 2mm.

Acoustic wave fields in an ocean waveguide with a sediment layer having continuously varying density and sound speed overlying an elastic subbottom is considered in this analysis. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of seabed acoustic properties,including the density and sound speed of sediment layer and subbottom, on the characteristics of the wave fields. This geometry offers a good environmental model which closely resembles a realistic ocean waveguide. This noise model was first proposed by Kuperman and Ingenito in the study of surface-generated ambient noise using normal mode approach.Recent experimental data provided by Hamilton have shown that the sediment layer in the seabed experiences a transitional change in which the density and the sound speed vary continuously from one value at the top to another at the bottom of the layer. Traditionally, in treating wave propagation in a such environment,the medium is represented by a series of layers,each of which has a uniform property within the layer.While this approximation may reasonably describe the variations of the medium as a whole,the details of the acoustic constituent may only be seen when these variations are properly accounted for. Moreover, the subbottom is taken to be a uniform elastic medium that is capable of supporting both compressional and shear waves. For the study of reflection from seabed, various kinds of sound speed and density profiles are employed.The wavenumber spectrum has clearly shown the various kinds wave components in the waveguide,in particular, the Scholte wave mode.The noise intensity in the water column is dominated by the modal and continuous spectrum.For the set of parameters chosen,the horizontal correlation lengths of the noise field tend to increase as the noise sources becomes more correlated, however, the vertical correlation tends to reduce. This indicates that the coherency of the noise field is controlled both by the noise sources and waveguide properties.

Seabed environmental monitoring programmes have been conducted at oil installations in the North Sea for many years. Such studies seek to determine the areal extent of the spread of contaminated cuttings and effects on assemblages of benthic organisms. Survey programmes usually follow a prescriptive programme with respect to the numbers of samples, mesh size and level of taxonomic identification. This thesis examines the effects of altering these survey components on the information content of three commonly used ordination methods, PCA, DCA and CA, with the aim of determining the minimum necessary expenditure to show the same outputs. The use of microbial bioassays was investigated as a potential alternative means of assessing the extent of infaunal disturbance. <I>Minimum number of replicates</I>. When analysing data from a strong environmental gradient, one replicate sample per station provided the same visual information as the total data set of two replicates. The DCA and CA procedures provided outputs which were easily interpretable ecologically, but the PCA biplots were difficult to interpret. Analysis of data from a weak environmental gradient required a higher number of replicates for each technique and outputs were more variable at low replicate numbers. <I>Taxonomic resolution</I>. When infauna were aggregated to the taxonomic level of class, the information content of the three ordination methods was the same as recorded for species level. However, at the taxonomic levels of order and phylum the information on the bi-plots was difficult to interpret. Although this suggests that there exists the potential for reducing the cost of analysis, further corroboration with different data sets would be required. <I>Sieve size</I>. Primary screening of 0.5 mm mesh fauna by a 1.0 mm mesh may be a more cost effective strategy than either a 1.0 mm or 0.5 mm fraction although there was some loss of information on the ordination bi-plots.

This thesis develops and applies Bayesian model selection and inversion approaches to acoustic seabed scattering and reflectivity data to estimate scattering and geoacoustic parameters with uncertainties, and to discriminate the relative importance of interface and volume scattering mechanisms. Determining seabed scattering mechanisms and parameters is important for reverberation modelling and sonar performance predictions. This thesis shows that remote acoustic sensing can provide efficient estimates of scattering properties and mechanisms with uncertainties, and is well suited for the development of bottom-scattering databases. An important issue in quantitative nonlinear inversion is model selection, i.e., specifying the physical theory, appropriate parameterization, and error statistics which describe the system of interest (acoustic scattering and reflection). The approach developed here uses trans-dimensional (trans-D) Bayesian sampling for both the number of sediment layers and the order (zeroth or first) of auto-regressive parameters in the error model. The scattering and reflection data are inverted simultaneously and the Bayesian sampling is conducted using a population of interacting Markov chains. The data are modelled using homogeneous fluid sediment layers overlying an elastic basement. The scattering model assumes a randomly rough water-sediment interface and random sediment-layer volume heterogeneities with statistically independent von Karman spatial power spectra. A Dirichlet prior distribution that allows the sediment layers and basement to have different numbers of parameters in a trans-D inversion is derived and implemented. The deviance information criterion and trans-D sampling are used to determine the dominant scattering mechanism for a particular data set. The inversion procedure is developed and validated through several simulated test cases, which demonstrate the following. (i) Including reflection data in joint inversion with scattering data improves the resolution and accuracy of scattering and geoacoustic parameters. (ii) The trans-D auto-regressive model improves scattering parameter resolution and correctly differentiates between strongly and weakly correlated residual errors. (iii) Joint scattering/reflection inversion is able to distinguish between interface and volume scattering as the dominant mechanism. %These invert either scattering %data only or scattering and reflection data jointly, assume one of interface scattering, volume scattering, %or volume and interface scattering, and use either fixed- or trans-D auto-regressive sampling. In addition, %the procedure for determining the dominant scattering mechanism is validated on six simulated data set %inversions where it accurately identifies the dominant scattering mechanism in five of the six test cases %(the sixth case is ambiguous). The inversion procedure is applied to data measured at several survey sites on the Malta Plateau (Mediterranean Sea) to estimate {\it in-situ} seabed scattering and geoacoustic parameters with uncertainties. Results are considered in terms of marginal posterior probability distributions and profiles, which quantify the effective data-information content to resolve scattering/ geoacoustic structure. At the first site scattering was assumed ({\it a priori}) to be dominated by interface roughness. The inversion results indicate well-defined roughness parameters in good agreement with existing measurements, and a multi-layer sediment profile over a high-speed (elastic) basement, consistent with independent knowledge of sand layers over limestone. At the second site no assumptions were made about the scattering mechanism. The deviance information criterion indicated volume scattering to be the dominant scattering mechanism. The scattering parameters and geoacoustic profile are well resolved. The parameters and preference for volume scattering are consistent with a core extracted at the site which indicated a sediment layer which included large (0.1 m) stones underlying $\sim$1 m of mud at the seafloor. As a final component of this thesis, a polynomial spline-based parameterization for trans-D geoacoustic inversion is developed for application to sites where sediment gradients (rather than discontinuous layers) dominate. The parameterization is evaluated using data for a third site on the Malta Plateau known to consist of soft mud with smoothly changing geoacoustic properties. The spline parameterization is compared to the standard stack-of-homogeneous-layers parameterization for the inversion of bottom-loss data. Inversion results for both parameterizations are in good agreement with measurements on a sediment core extracted at the site. However, the spline parameterization more accurately resolves the power-law like structure of the core density profile, and represents the preferred model according to the deviance information criterion. / Graduate / 0373 / gavin.amw.steininger@gmail.com

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is dependent on desalination of seawater to provide new water supplies for the future. Desalination is expensive and it is very important to reduce the cost and lower the energy consumption. Most seawater reverse osmosis facilities use open-ocean intakes, which require extensive pre-treatment processes to remove particulate and biological materials that cause operating problems. An alternative intake is the subsurface system which utilizes the concept of riverbank filtration using wells or galleries and provides natural filtration to improve the quality of feedwater before it enters the desalination plant. This reduces operating cost and lowers energy consumption. Research was focused on evaluating gallery-type intakes (beach and seabed galleries) that could be used along the Northern Red Sea shoreline to provide a better quality feedwater for desalination. The geological characteristics of the visited sites were favorable for the development of seabed filter systems (offshore), but not for beach gallery intakes. The low wave energy along the shoreline and the presence of mud or rocky coasts made beach galleries infeasible. One of the potentially favorable sites for a seabed filter was located in the nearshore area at King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC). This site has a predominantly sandy offshore bottom with shallow water depths, and a low tide range. In addition, the bottom is always covered with water and contains soft limestone unit below the sand mantle that could be easy excavated to facilitate the construction of a seabed filter. About 50 sediment samples were collected from the site and laboratory measurements were performed on them. Grain size distribution, porosity and hydraulic conductivity measurements were performed on the sediment samples. In addition, six statistical methods were used to estimate the hydraulic conductivity values. Based on results of lab measurements, field observations, tide ranges and sediment types, it is concluded that the geological conditions and characteristics of KAEC site are feasible for design and construction of a seabed filtration system. A conservatively designed cell with dimensions of 100 by 50 m would produce about 25,000 m3/day of filtered seawater and seven cells could support a 60,000 m3/day (permeate) seawater RO plant.

Single-beam echosounders are an inexpensive, practical and non-invasive means of remote sensing the seabed. Ideally, the common single-beam echosounder should be able to tell fishers, navigators, engineers and scientists what the seabed consists of in addition to water depth. Low-frequency underwater acoustic systems (<10 kHz) can do this in some circumstances, but are expensive, offer limited resolution and potentially hazardous to marine mammals. High-frequency systems, such as single and multibeam echosounders, are very effective at mapping bathymetry, but do not characterize the seabed directly. Instead, these systems divide the seabed into self-similar segments or classes, and then rely on ground-truth data (usually sediment grab samples) to assign seabed-type labels such as sand, etc., to the classes. However, inadequate and inaccurate ground-truth is a major problem. Single-beam seabed classification methods also suffer from a lack of discriminatory power and from artefacts such as water depth and seabed slope. The cause of these problems is that the methods lack a basis in physics and are mainly statistical. Then, the central objective in this dissertation is to develop physics-based methods to improve classification and to address the problem of ground-truth by inferring seabed characteristics directly from the acoustics. An overview of current methods is presented along with case studies of single-beam surveys to introduce the current seabed classification method called QTC VIEW™ and to identify specific problems. A physical basis is established in scattering and geometrical theories and observations of field and model data. This leads to new classification and characterization methods that overcome the shortcomings of current seabed classification methods. Advancements also include new physical models of echosounding. The new methods are presented, implemented and evaluated. Highlights of experimental results include a new testbed located in Patricia Bay, British Columbia. The testbed consists of exhaustive ground-truth, surveys and novel controlled experiments with various single-beam echosounders, ranging in frequency from 12 to 200 kHz. Simulated echo time series data from the numerical BORIS model and a new analytic model are used to augment the testbed. Evaluation of experimental results shows the new physics-based methodology improves seabed classification significantly and enables seabed characterization by an uncalibrated single-beam echosounder. / Graduate

Yes / In this study, a new three-dimensional (3-D) model was developed to provide better understanding of the mechanism for wave-induced seabed response around mono-pile. Based on poro-elastic theory, the fully dynamic (FD) formulations were adopted in the present model to simulate pore water pressure, soil stresses, displacements of both soil and mono-pile. Good agreement between numerical simulation and experimental results was obtained. Based on parametric study, numerical results indicated: (1) wave diffraction and reflection have significant effects on pore water pressure and soil displacements around mono-pile; (2) the most sensitive position for seabed parameter to pore water pressure around mono-pile locates in front of mono-pile while the least sensitive position is at the position of angle 3π/4 with respect to the incident wave direction; and (3) the increase of mono-pile horizontal displacement corresponds to the increase of wave height and the decrease of seabed Young's modulus. / National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (51425901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51209082, 51379071, 41176073), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20120094120006, 20130094110014), the 111 project (B12032), the 333 project of Jiangsu Province (2013Ⅲ-1882)