Acoustic bubble counting technique using sound speed extracted from sound attenuation

Sound attenuation has been solely used to estimate bubble size distribution s of bubbly water in the conventional acoustic bubble sizing methods. These conventional methods are useful for the void fraction around 10(-6) or low er. However, the change of compressibility in the bubbly water also should be considered in bubble sizing for the void fraction around 10(-5) or highe r. Recently, the sound speed as well as sound attenuation was considered fo r acoustic bubble size estimation in bubbly water. In this paper, the sound speed estimated from sound attenuation in bubbly water by an iterative met hod is used for a bubble counting. This new iterative inverse bubble sizing technique is numerically tested for bubble distributions of single-size, G aussian, and power-law functions. The numerical simulation results are in a greement with the given bubble distributions even for the high void fractio ns of 10(-4)-10(-3). It suggests that the iterative inverse technique can b e a very powerful tool for practical use in acoustic bubble counting in the ocean.