Sound Propagation in Water

Created by Sarah Burch (Sburch8)

Sound Waves in a Medium

The physical effect of sound as it travels through the medium of water has some unique effects not found in transmission mediums such as air or a solid. Basically, a sound wave consists of a repeating pattern of high and low pressures of energy from the point of the sound’s source as it travels through a medium to a sound receiver. Sound waves, known as rays, behave differently depending on the medium that it travels through: air, water, or a solid. Salt water, as a medium for sound propagation, affects sound by changes in temperature, salinity, and pressure as these sound rays do not propagate in straight lines in the ocean, they are refracted (2). Sound speed refraction results in a bigger angle to the plane of the waves when the speed is increased and a smaller angle when speed is decreased thus these changes cause sound to become dependent in how it propagates from its source to a receiver (3).

Speed of Sound in a Medium

The speed of sound in a medium can be determined by the equation: v= (Kρ)-½ where: v is the speed of sound, K is the compressibility, and ρ (rho) is the density

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See also

Nature, Behavior, and Properties of Sound

Sound Barrier

Speed of Sound

Resonance

Doppler Effect

Transverse and Longitudinal Waves

Standing waves

Further reading

A Text-book of Sound by Edmund Catchpool, 1931

Rarefaction Wave Interaction of Pressure-gradient System by The Pennsylvania State University, 2007

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima, 2013

External links

[1]

[2]

[3]

References

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/souspe2.html