Sound waves

Sound is a mechanical longitudinal wave that travels in air and other materials. We perceive the sound
waves by Hearing. The Pitch of a sound is determined by the frequency  the higher the frequency, the
higher the pitch.

Audible, Ultrasonic and Infrasonic waves

Audible waves
The human ear is sensitive to sound waves of frequency between 20 Hz to 20 kHz. This range is
known as audible range and the waves are associated within this range is called audible waves. As for
example, waves produced by vibrating sitar, guitar, organ pipes etc.
Ultrasonic waves
A longitudinal wave, whose frequency is above the upper limit of audible range i.e. 20 kHz, is called
ultrasonic wave. It is generated by very small sources like quartz crystal.
Infrasonic waves
A longitudinal wave, whose frequency is below the audible range i.e. 20 Hz, is called an infrasonic
wave. It is generated by a large source like earthquake.

Propagation and Speed of Longitudinal waves

Firstly, we will focus on sound waves that travel through the air and that are audible to people. In Fig.
1, a tiny sound source S, called a point source, that emits sound waves in all directions. The wavefronts
are surfaces over which the oscillations due to the sound wave have the same value; such surfaces are
represented by whole or partial circles for a point source that indicate the spread of the sound waves.
Rays are directed lines perpendicular to the wavefronts that indicate the direction of travel of the
wavefronts. The short double arrows superimposed on the rays of Fig. 1 indicate that the longitudinal
oscillations of the air are parallel to the rays.

Near a point source like that of Fig. 1, the wavefronts are spherical and spread out in 3-dimensions,
and there the waves are said to be spherical. As the wavefronts move outward and their radii become
larger, their curvature decreases. Far from the source, we approximate the wavefronts as planes (or
lines on 2-dimensional drawings), and the waves are said to be planar.
Speed of longitudinal waves
The speed of any mechanical wave either transverse or longitudinal depends on both an inertial
property of the medium (to store kinetic energy) and an elastic property of the medium (to store
potential energy). Thus, we can generalize the speed of a transverse wave along a stretched string,

where τ is the tension in the string and μ is the string’s linear density for transverse waves. If the
medium is air and the wave is longitudinal, we can guess that the inertial property, corresponding to μ,
is the volume density ρ of air. What will we put for the elastic property?
As a sound wave passes through air, potential energy is associated with periodic compressions and
expansions of small volume elements of the air. The property that determines the extent to which an
element of a medium changes in volume when the pressure on it changes is the bulk modulus B,
defined as

Here ∆V/V is the fractional change in volume produced by a change in pressure ∆P. The signs of ∆P
and ∆V are always opposite: when we increase the pressure (∆P is positive), its volume decreases (∆V
is negative). We include a minus sign in Eq. (2) so that B is always a positive quantity. Now putting B
for τ and ρ for μ in Eq. (1) yields

as the speed of sound in a medium with bulk modulus B and density ρ. Table (below) lists the speed of
sound in various media.
Medium Example of medium Speed (m/sec)
Gaseous Air (0 °C) 331
Liquid Water (0 °C) 1402
Solid Steel 5941
The density of water is almost 1000 times greater than the density of air. If this were the only relevant
factor, we would expect from Eq. (3) that the speed of sound in water would be considerably less than
the speed of sound in air. However, the above table shows that the reverse is true. We conclude that the
bulk modulus of water must be more than 1000 times greater than that of air. This is indeed the case.
Water is much more incompressible than air, which is another way of saying that its bulk modulus is
much greater.
Vibrating Systems and Sources of Sound
A vibrating system transmits a wave through the air to the ears of the listener. This is the basic
principle of the production of sound by voice or by musical instruments. We have already studied the
propagation of the sound wave, and now to understand the nature of the sound we must study the
vibrating system that produces it.
Vibrating strings→ these instruments include the bowed strings (violins), plucked strings (guitar) and
struck strings (piano).
If a string fixed at both ends is bowed, struck or plucked, transverse vibrations travel along the
string; these disturbances are reflected at the fixed ends, and a standing wave pattern is formed. The
natural modes of vibration of the string are excited, and these vibrations give rise to longitudinal waves
in the surrounding air, which transmits them to our ears as a musical sound.
A string of length L, fixed at both ends, can resonate at frequencies given by

Here ( ) is the speed in the string of the transverse traveling waves whose superposition can be
thought of as giving rise to the vibrations, is the same for all frequencies but not the speed of sound in
air. At any one of these frequencies, the string contains a whole number n of loops between its ends; it
has nodes at each end and n  1 additional nodes equally spaced along its length (Fig. 2).

If the string is initially distorted so that its shape is the same as any one of the possible harmonics, it
vibrates only at the frequency of that particular harmonic. The initial conditions usually arise from
striking or bowing the string, however, and in such cases not only the fundamental but many of the
overtones are present in the resulting vibration. The actual displacement is the sum of the several
harmonics with various amplitudes. The impulses that are sent through the air to the ear and brain give
rise to one net effect, which is characteristic of the particular stringed instrument. The quality of the
sound of a particular note (fundamental frequency) played by an instrument is determined by the
number of overtones (2nd harmonic = 1st overtone) present and their respective intensities. Fig. 3 shows
the sound spectra and corresponding waveforms for the violin and piano.