Acoustic Test Facility

Underwater acoustics is the corroboration technology for applications in underwater communication, navigation, geophysical surveying, sonar, topographic measurement and echo-sounding. In addition, knowledge of underwater acoustics and accurate measurements are essential for exploration of ocean and their resources.

Keeping this in mind a state-of-the-art Acoustic Test Facility (ATF) is established at NIOT to cater the needs of testing and calibration of marine instruments of NIOT and other National Research Laboratories, Institutes and Industries. Test facility consists of Acoustic Tank, Acoustic Calibration System (ACS) and Acoustic Transducer Positioning System (ATPS). Acoustic transducers are characterized using comparison calibration, reciprocity calibration and vibrating water column techniques. Acquired data can be processed through various analysis techniques such as FFT and spectrum analysis.

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Salient Features/ Facilities

• Acoustic tank of 16m length, 9m width, & 7m depth for free-field calibration from 1 kHz to 500 kHz.
• Vibrating water column setup for hydrophone calibration from 100Hz to 1 kHz.
• Acoustic transducer positioning system with 2 moving trolleys in X, Y & Z directions and rotating mechanism capable of handling transducers of weight up to 500kg.
• Overhead crane of 3 tonne capacity.
• State of the art instrumentation to carry out any acoustic measurements.

Low frequency calibration setup:

• A state of the art, low frequency calibration setup based on vibrating water column based method has been established at ATF.
• This facility enables calibration of the transducers from 100Hz to 1 kHz.
• The measurement set up consists of the test vessel with water and shaker assembly, hydrophone under test and the reference hydrophone which are placed in the test vessel filled with water.
• The excitation signal can be random, pseudo random, swept sine etc.
• The frequency response calibration is performed as a 2 channel measurement with both the hydrophones exposed to the same sound pressure level in the water filled test vessel. The open circuit sensitivity is determined by comparing the sensitivity of hydrophone under test with that of known reference standard. All the corrections factors are considered in order to reduce the measurement uncertainty.