A Comparison of Acoustic Particle Velocity Modelling Methods for Seismic Airgun Sources

Abstract

Sound waves in the ocean are a fluctuation of both pressure and fluid motion. Fish “hear” this motion, but the guidelines to protect them, and the models used to assess exposure are based on pressure. This thesis proposes methods to model the acoustic motion induced by airgun sound sources used in seismic surveys, validating the models against benchmarks and field-data, finding that they are both more accurate and faster than the methods currently used