Acoustic Plane Waves

Experiment 8

Julian Weathersby
Course: AME341
Lab Date: Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Lab Partners: Joe Lubinski
Julian Weathersby Acoustic Plane Waves

Abstract
Acoustic plane waves are theoretical which can make them complicated to observe. The
waves propagate and vary in only one direction, which means observing them calls for
innovating ways to confining the acoustic disturbances in order to get a smooth
decipherable signal. The most popular device for doing this is a loudspeaker. The
vibrations from the coils propagate away from the speaker at the speed of sound and in
part, produce sound.

Introduction
Acoustic waves have a few properties that define them. They are low amplitude pressure
waves that circulate through fluid and they are governed by the wave equation,
c2 2
2
(1)
= c
t2 x2
where ℘is the fluctuating pressure and c is the wave speed. The wave speed is also
considered the speed of sound and is given as,
w (2)
c c=
k
c = grT (3)
where γ is the ratio of specific heats, r is the universal gas constant, T is the temperature
in Kelvin, ω is the frequency, and c k is the wavenumber which is given by,
2p (4)
k=
l
where λ is the wavelength. The phase can be represented as
φ = kx (5)
where x is the distances, and becomes
c cφ (6)
=k
x
c
which states that k is the rate at which φ increases with x.

Materials and Methods

c
A speaker cone, a microphone, a waveform generator, and computer-based
instrumentation of a VScope and DSA were used to perform the experiment. The
waveform generator was used to power the speaker and a power supply was used to
power the microphone. When connecting the circuit, a LM747 dual op-amp was used
and the pinouts were connected according to figure 1. The speaker was then tested along
with the microphone to prevent problems during the experiment. Once everything was
checked out, the microphone was placed inside the tube to complete the setup of the
experiment.
Using VScope, the input and output signals were observed at a frequency between
100 and 400 Hz, in this case 200 Hz was used. The microphone was also moved around
the tube to see how the signal varies. A sample time trace was saved to disk at a
microphone position that was about 30 cm away from the speaker cone. Using the same
frequency and position, DSA was used to observe the power spectra of both the input and

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Julian Weathersby Acoustic Plane Waves

the output signal which was also saved to disk. Using the same frequency the location of
the microphone was changed to 60 cm away from the speaker cone and a sample time
trace and the power spectra were saved to disk. In order to gain more observation, the
signal was changed to a square wave and the frequency was increased to 400 Hz, which
produced a louder tone. The time traces and power spectra were saved to disk for two
different locations of the microphone.
The speed of sound was then measured by measuring the wave phase as a
function of the distance. The waveform generator was setback to a sine wave with a 1V
peak-to-peak magnitude and a frequency of 600 Hz. This was made possible by lining up
the two signals at multiples of pi/2 by moving the position of the microphone. This
difference occurs when the zero crossing of one signal lines up with the zero crossing or
the peak value of the other. Because this measurement was done by eye, uncertainty
needed to be considered. The uncertainty in the distance was found by moving the
microphone both ways until it was clear that the signals were no longer lined up either by
zero crossings or zero crossings and peak values. These two values were then averaged
and the difference between the average value and one measure value was taken as the
uncertainty. The speed of sound was then estimated to make comparisons later. This
whole process was then repeated using a frequency of 1.2 kHz.
GND

Vcc-
Follower input
Amp input from mic 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 from WG

747 Op-Amp

8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Vcc+

amp output to ADC ch.2 Follower output to

speaker and ADC ch.1

Figure 1: Pinout connections for op-amp

Results
For future estimates of the speed of sound, the lab temperature was taken to be
23.5 °C ± 0.5 °C. The first part of the experiment was observing the affect of frequency
and the distance has on the output signal. As stated in the Materials and Methods section,
the first signals were observed at 200 Hz and a 30 cm distance and produced the signals
in the time trace of figure 2. The microphone was then moved 30 cm away from the

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Julian Weathersby Acoustic Plane Waves

speaker and the signals were observed and are visible in figure 3. The two power spectra
were also observed (see figures 4 and 5). The main observation was that the output
signal’s sine wave had a larger, more defined magnitude the closer it was to the
microphone. On the other hand, the further the microphone was to the speaker, the better
the op-amp worked in amplifying the signal.

0.6

Input
0.4 Output

0.2

0
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012
phase (rad)

­0.2

­0.4

­0.6
time (s)

Figure 2: Time trace of sine wave input and output signals at 200 Hz and a distance, x, of 30 cm.

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Julian Weathersby Acoustic Plane Waves

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
phase 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012

­0.2
input
output

­0.4

­0.6
time

Figure 3: Time trace of sine wave input and output signals at 200 Hz and a distance, x, of 60 cm.
0
1 10 100 1000

­10

­20

­30

Output
­40 Input

dB
­50

­60

­70

­80

­90
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 4: Power spectra of sine wave input and output signals at 200 Hz and a distance, x, of 30 cm.

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Julian Weathersby Acoustic Plane Waves

0
1 10 100 1000

­20

output
­40 input

dB­60

­80

­100

­120
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 5: Power spectra of sine wave input and output signals at 200 Hz and a distance, x, of 60 cm.

The same comparison was done with the square wave signals. The observation
here was that the further away the microphone was, the larger the square wave magnitude
and the larger the peak frequency of the power spectra, see figures 6 through 9 for visual
comparison.

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Julian Weathersby Acoustic Plane Waves

0.6

0.4

0.2
input
output

0
phase 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012

­0.2

­0.4

­0.6
time

Figure 6: Time trace of square wave input and output signals at 400 Hz and a distance, x, of 60 cm.
1.5

input
1 input

0.5

0
phase 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012

­0.5

­1

­1.5
time

Figure 7: Time trace of square wave input and output signals at 400 Hz and a distance, x, of 30 cm.

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Julian Weathersby Acoustic Plane Waves

20

0
1 10 100 1000

­20
output
input

­40

dB

­60

­80

­100

­120
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 8: Power spectra of square wave input and output signals at 400 Hz and
a distance, x, of 60 cm.
0
1 10 100 1000

­10

­20

­30

­40

output
dB­50 input

­60

­70

­80

­90

­100
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 9: Power spectra of square wave input and output signals at 400 Hz and
a distance, x, of 30 cm.

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The final part of the experiment was measuring the value of k. The first set of
data, see figure 10, taken at 600 Hz produced a value of 0.1025 rad/cm for k and the
second set of date, see figure 11, taken at 1.2 kHz produced a value of 0.2225 rad/cm.
Along with this, the speed of sound was asked to be estimated and using equation 3 with
γ = 1.4, r = 287 m*K/s, and T = 293 K, the speed of sound, c, was found to be 343 m/s.
11

y = 0.1025x + 1.0062

phase (rad)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
­1
x (cm)

Figure 10: Plot of phase points in comparison to the distance at a 600 Hz sine wave. The linear line
represents the wavenumber, k.

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17

y = 0.2225x + 2.734

15

13

11

7
phase (rad)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60
­1
x (cm)

Figure 11: Plot of phase points in comparison to the distance at a 1.2 kHz sine wave. The linear line
represents the wavenumber, k.

Discussion
The bulk of the experiment was designed to observe signals. As stated before in
the results section, for a sine wave signal, the closer the microphone was to the speaker,
the output sine wave signal had a larger more defined magnitude where as the farther it
was, the less smooth it was. When compared the power spectra of the sine wave signal,
the further away the microphone was, the higher the peak frequency was and the larger
the difference was between the peak frequencies of the input and output signals,
compared with figures 4 and 5. Observing the square wave, the further the distance, the
larger the magnitude and the larger the peak frequency. This should not be considered
unorthodox because sine and square wave signals are naturally different which makes it
completely plausible for the time traces to show opposite affects with respect to the
distance. The larger peak frequencies are due to the op-amp working more efficiently.
This is due to distance, which allows the microphone to pick up the vibrations from the
speaker clearly.
Based on the data from measuring the speed of sound and k, see figures 10 and
11, the wavenumber, k, increases as the frequency increases. At 600 Hz, k was 0.1025
rad/cm and at 1.2 kHz, k was 0.2225 rad/cm. The uncertainty of each of these is 0.5
rad/cm due to the uncertainty of the x values and using Taylor’s expansion. These two

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numbers are equal which can imply that the values of c are also equal. Using equation 2,
the value for the speed of sound at 600 Hz was 36779 cm/s and at 1.2 kHz was 33887 cm/
s. The estimated value found during the experiment was 34300 cm/s. All of these
numbers are very close and due to the uncertainty from the values of k, are equal.

References
Lab Experiment
Lecture/ Lab Notes

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