Study on the Properties of Acoustic Vector Field Near a Nonuniform-Thickness Baffle

Acoustic baffles are indispensable structures in underwater acoustic equipment, including underwater vehicles. It is often employed in the design of sonar arrays to reduce the self-noise of array carriers. Moreover, its design can enhance the sensitivity and directivity of the transducer to a certain extent. The study of underwater acoustic scattering of an acoustic baffle is a basic problem. In practice, the baffle thickness is usually uneven. To study the underwater acoustic scattering of a baffle and its near-field vector characteristics using ray acoustic theory, a model of the thickness of the baffle was established in this study. The results show that the vector sound field in front of the baffle is affected by the incident sound wave and the baffle parameters. Finally, the same model was calculated using COMSOL, and the results agreed with the theoretical results.