A hydrophone calibration centre for the Mediterranean area

The Underwater Acoustics Laboratory of the Institute of Acoustics "O. M. Corbino" in Rome, Italy, has recently achieved accreditation for hydrophone calibration. It can offer hydrophone calibration services operating under a management system compliant with UNI EN ISO/IEC standard and traceability of measurements to NPL primary standards. Precise, traceable measurements are needed today in all applications of underwater acoustics, where a faithful response of measuring devices is essential for a correct evaluation of the system performance and for a rigorous assessment of the environmental impact of man-made activities at sea. To attain these requirements the Laboratory has a water tank 6 m long, 4 m wide and 5,5 m deep, equipped with a motorized two-trolley positioning system capable of handling loads of up to 100 kg. A variety of test and measurement equipment is available, controlled by a computer acoustic calibration system, and standalone instruments for signal generation, acquisition and analysis. Besides, two windows are provided on one of the tank walls for combined acoustical and optical measurements, which can be performed using the available Laser Doppler Vibrometer (up to 100 kHz) and the 16-mm film rotating prism high-speed camera (up to 10 000 frames per second).