Phase and group speeds of airborne surface waves over porous layers and periodically rough hard surfaces

Sound fields above porous layers or rough acoustically hard boundaries may include airborne surface waves. The surface wave properties depend on the effective surface admittance. Analytical expressions for surface wave speeds are derived from models for the acoustical properties of rigid porous media. Surface wave effects on measurements of level difference spectra over porous asphalt are investigated and predictions of phase, group speeds, and vertical attenuation of the surface waves over externally reacting hard backed layers corresponding to a porous asphalt are compared. Predictions of surface wave characteristics above an identical vertical slit medium are compared with data obtained over arrays of parallel aluminum strips on an acoustically hard surface. Group speeds of surface waves over lattices, parallel regularly spaced strips, and snow obtained by numerical differentiation of the phase speed spectra corresponding to admittance spectra deduced from complex excess attenuation are found to compare well with those estimated from time domain data. An effective admittance, deduced from a boundary element method simulation of the excess attenuation spectrum over regularly spaced ribs so that the frequency of the peak corresponds with that in the measured spectrum, is used to estimate the group speed of the associated surface wave.