Engineering Acoustics

Fall 2015
HW1
Due Friday, September 4

Consider the device presented in class and passed around the room during the courses opening
activities. Follow up our discussion by turning in short written answers (ranging from a couple of
words to a couple of sentences, as you see fit) to each question.

1. What is this thing anyway and what is it supposed to do?

2. What happens when you apply a voltage to the terminals?
3. What are some of the output characteristics that one might like to control?
4. What are some other things that produce a similar output?
5. How does this device differ from the things discussed in (4)?
6. Does operating it in a disassembled state change the output and why?
7. How might we generate a predictive model that allows us to optimize such a device?
8. What are some of the parts of this device and what do they do?
9. Which of these store energy? Which of these dissipate energy? What is the useful work?
10. What are the idealized mechanical components used in a physical model?
11. What are some fundamental constitutive relationships for these idealized components?
12. How might we construct a predictive, mathematical model of this device?
13. What could we do with this model?