This study develops an efficient and accurate method for calculating nonlinear diffraction beam fields propagating in fluids or solids. The Westervelt equation and quasilinear theory, from which the integral solutions for the fundamental and second harmonics can be obtained, are first considered. A computationally efficient method is then developed using a multi-Gaussian beam (MGB) model that easily separates the diffraction effects from the plane wave solution. The MGB models provide accurate

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... eam fields when compared with the integral solutions for a number of transmitter-receiver geometries. These models can also serve as fast, powerful modeling tools for many nonlinear acoustics applications, especially in making diffraction corrections for the nonlinearity parameter determination, because of their computational efficiency and accuracy.