Correction for Spatial Averaging Artifacts for Circularly-Symmetric Pressure Beams Measured with Membrane Hydrophones.

This paper investigates experimental underestimation of pressure measurements due to spatial averaging across a hydrophone sensitive element. Empirical relationships are measured to enable correction for hydrophone spatial averaging errors in peak compressional pressure ( ), peak rarefactional pressure ( ), and pulse intensity integral (). The empirical relationships show, for example, that if a 3-MHz, F/2 transducer is driven to moderate nonlinear distortion and measured at the focal point with a 500-μm membrane hydrophone, then spatial averaging errors are approximately 16% ( ), 12% ( ), and 24% ().