Calculation of acoustical scattering from a cluster of scatterers

Abstract

The problem of determining the field scattered by a cluster of scatterers when they are insonified by a known acoustical field is addressed. The problem is formulated by using the T-matrix method and the resulting system of linear equations is solved by using the multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) and the fast multipole method-fast Fourier transform (FMMFFT) method, and the efficiency of the two methods is compared. It was observed that, in general, the MLFMA performs better than the FMMFFT algorithm. However, when the scatterers are distributed uniformly on a rectangular grid, the FMMFFT algorithm performs as good as the MLFMA. The accuracy of the methods is evaluated by modeling a spherical scatterer as composed of many small spheres. | The problem of determining the field scattered by a cluster of scatterers when they are insonified by a known acoustical field is addressed. The problem is formulated by using the T-matrix method and the resulting system of linear equations is solved by using the multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) and the fast multipole method-fast Fourier transform (FMMFFT) method, and the efficiency of the two methods is compared. It was observed that, in general, the MLFMA performs better than the FMMFFT algorithm. However, when the scatterers are distributed uniformly on a rectangular grid, the FMMFFT algorithm performs as good as the MLFMA. The accuracy of the method is evaluated by modeling a spherical scatterer as composed of many small spheres.