Development and preliminary application of a minimum axle-distance triaxial measurement system for the acoustic characteristics of marine sediments

The seabed sediments have different original stress states. It is of great significance to study the acoustic characteristics of sediments in different stress states. By adding an acoustic device into the geotechnical Global Digital Systems (GDS) stress path triaxial system, a minimum axle-distance triaxial measurement system for the acoustic properties of seabed sediments is developed. The GDS triaxial system is used to simulate the in-situ stress state of sediments, and the acoustic measurement system is used to measure the sound attenuation and sound velocity of them. The reliability of the developed measurement system is verified by the pure water calibration test. Then, the sound attenuation and sound velocity of triaxial specimens of the sandy sediments in Hangzhou Bay, China, are tested with different effective stresses and excitation frequencies. Test results are consistent with the existing acoustic theory of marine sediments, which verifies the effectiveness of the developed measurement system. It indicates that the developed measurement system can be applied to study the acoustic properties of seabed sediments in different original seabed stress states.