Low‐frequency acoustic emissions in fresh and salt water

The impact of a jet of water onto a still water surface results in the entrainment of large amounts of air and the eventual formation of a bubble plume. Densely populated bubble plumes are generated by dropping a fixed volume of water, held in a cylindrical container, onto a still‐water surface. The detached bubble plume, which is roughly spherical in shape, then undergoes volume pulsation and radiates relatively large‐amplitude, low‐frequency sound. The results of a laboratory study of the noise produced by this process were reported previously by Kolaini et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 94, 2809–2820 (1993)]. In this paper we report the results of a field study of noise produced by this process in both fresh water (Lake Washington, WA) and salt water (Puget Sound, WA). Studies of acoustic emissions from transient bubble plumes as a function of cylinder parameters are described, with specific attention devoted to a comparison of the results obtained in salt and fresh water. The measurements, which exhibit good agreement with laboratory study, indicate that there is a correlation between the acoustic intensity radiated from bubble plumes and the total potential energy of the water jet.