Measurement of the radiated power of sound sources in a reverberation pool

A reverberation pool method was proposed to measure the power radiated by underwater sound sources.The spatially averaged power spectrum in the pool was measured and converted to the equivalent free field power spectrum of the sound sources.This was done by exactly calibrating the sound field of the reverberation pool.The effects of the position of the sound source in the pool,of the distance between the sound source and the hydrophone,as well as other influences on the measured results of the spatially averaged power spectrum were investigated.The relationship between the safety frequency limitation for measuring the power radiated by sound sources in the reverberation pool and the dimensions of the pool were analyzed.The measurement uncertainties for the spatially averaged power spectrum were found to have an A-class uncertainty of less than 1 dB.The difference between the power of sound sources in a reverberation pool and their power in a free field were calculated by measuring reverberation time.The difference was found to be not more than 1 dB.This indicated that the proposed method is also useful for measuring the power radiated by underwater sound sources with complex structures or special spatial distributions.