A tank experiment was carried out to investigate underwater sound propagation over an
elastic bottom in flat and sloping configurations. The purpose of the experiment was to
evaluate range-dependent propagation models with high-quality experimental data. The sea
floor was modeled as an elastic medium by a polyvinyl chloride slab. The relatively high
rigidity of the slab requires accounting for shear waves in this environment. Acoustic
measurements were obtained along virtual arrays in the water column using a robotic …