Conception Of An Underwater Prototype Array: From Simulation Design To Mechanical Assessment.

As natural resources are increasingly difficult to find on the surface of the earth, mining industries start to dig in deep waters to find new deposits. The production of noise in the surrounding environment is a direct consequence of this activity and it must be monitored to predict its impact on the nearby marine life. This is the goal of Abysound research project in which a monitoring system is conceived and used to localize and quantify deep underwater acoustic sources and propagate the sound they emit to create noise impact maps. This study focuses on the conception of the acoustic array which enables the localization of the sources. Given the harsh conditions of utilization, it must be ensured that from the design phase to the real deployment all the array parts are mechanically stable and they allow to perform acoustic computations accurately. After a presentation of the array shape and the mechanical constraints given as an input of the construction, the stability of the chosen structure is assessed. Firstly numerical simulations are performed to validate the stability. Then a deployment test is conducted in shallow waters and it shows both the mechanical stability of the array during a real launching and the effectiveness of the array to perform acoustic source localization thanks to an immersed source producing noise during the experiment.