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Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than 20,000 Hz. Ultrasound is not different from audible sound in its physical properties, but cannot be heard by humans. Ultrasound devices operate with frequencies from 20 kHz up to several gigahertz. Medical ultrasound is commonly used for diagnostics and treatment.
An acoustic wave is a mechanical wave that transmits energy through the movements of atoms and molecules. Acoustic waves transmit through fluids in a longitudinal manner (movement of particles are parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave); in contrast to electromagnetic waves that transmit in transverse manner (movement of particles at a right angle to the direction of propagation ...
Gasses and liquids generally exhibit less hysteresis than solid materials (e.g., sound waves cause adiabatic compression and rarefaction) and behave in a, mostly, Newtonian way. Combined, the resistive and reactive properties of an acoustic medium form the acoustic impedance. The behaviour of sound waves encountering a different medium is ...
This falls within the domain of physical acoustics. In fluids, sound propagates primarily as a pressure wave. In solids, mechanical waves can take many forms including longitudinal waves, transverse waves and surface waves. Acoustics looks first at the pressure levels and frequencies in the sound wave and how the wave interacts with the ...
Output of a computer model of underwater acoustic propagation in a simplified ocean environment. A seafloor map produced by multibeam sonar. Underwater acoustics (also known as hydroacoustics) is the study of the propagation of sound in water and the interaction of the mechanical waves that constitute sound with the water, its contents and its boundaries.
Sine waves occur often in physics, including wind waves, sound waves, and light waves, such as monochromatic radiation. In engineering , signal processing , and mathematics , Fourier analysis decomposes general functions into a sum of sine waves of various frequencies, relative phases, and magnitudes.
The speed of sound is variable and depends on the properties of the substance through which the wave is travelling. In solids, the speed of transverse (or shear) waves depends on the shear deformation under shear stress (called the shear modulus ), and the density of the medium.
However, this range is an average and will slightly change from individual to individual. Sound waves that have frequencies below 16 Hz are called infrasoniciis and those above 20 kHz are called ultrasonic. Sound is a mechanical wave and as such consists physically in oscillatory elastic compression and in oscillatory displacement of a fluid.