Acoustic wave equation

In physics, the acoustic wave equation governs the propagation of acoustic waves through a material medium. The form of the equation is a second order partial differential equation. The equation describes the evolution of acoustic pressure $p$ or particle velocity u as a function of position r and time $t$ . A simplified form of the equation describes acoustic waves in only one spatial dimension, while a more general form describes waves in three dimensions.

1 In one dimension
2 In three dimensions
- 2.1 Equation
- 2.2 Solution
3 References
4 See also

In one dimension

Equation

Feynman^[1] derives the wave equation that describes the behaviour of sound in matter in one dimension (position $x$ ) as:

${ \partial^2 p \over \partial x ^2 } - {1 \over c^2} { \partial^2 p \over \partial t ^2 } = 0$

where $p$ is the acoustic pressure (the local deviation from the ambient pressure), and where $c$ is the speed of sound.

Solution

Provided that the speed $c$ is a constant, not dependent on frequency (the dispersionless case), then the most general solution is

$p = f(c t - x) %2B g(c t %2B x)$

where $f$ and $g$ are any two twice-differentiable functions. This may be pictured as the superposition of two waveforms of arbitrary profile, one ( $f$ ) travelling up the x-axis and the other ( $g$ ) down the x-axis at the speed $c$ . The particular case of a sinusoidal wave travelling in one direction is obtained by choosing either $f$ or $g$ to be a sinusoid, and the other to be zero, giving

$p=p_0 \sin(\omega t \mp kx)$ .

where $\omega$ is the angular frequency of the wave and $k$ is its wave number.

Derivation

The wave equation can be developed from the linearized one-dimensional continuity equation, the linearized one-dimensional force equation and the equation of state.

The equation of state (ideal gas law)

$PV=nRT$

In an adiabatic process, pressure P as a function of density $\rho$ can be linearized to

$P = C \rho \,$

where C is some constant. Breaking the pressure and density into their mean and total components and noting that $C=\frac{\partial P}{\partial \rho}$ :

$P - P_0 = \left(\frac{\partial P}{\partial \rho}\right) (\rho - \rho_0)$ .

The adiabatic bulk modulus for a fluid is defined as

$B= \rho_0 \left(\frac{\partial P}{\partial \rho}\right)_{adiabatic}$

which gives the result

$P-P_0=B \frac{\rho - \rho_0}{\rho_0}$ .

Condensation, s, is defined as the change in density for a given ambient fluid density.

$s = \frac{\rho - \rho_0}{\rho_0}$

The linearized equation of state becomes

$p = B s\,$ where p is the acoustic pressure( $P-P_0$ ).

The continuity equation (conservation of mass) in one dimension is

$\frac{\partial \rho}{\partial t} %2B \frac{\partial }{\partial x} (\rho u) = 0$ .

Again the equation must be linearized and the variables split into mean and variable components.

$\frac{\partial}{\partial t} ( \rho_0 %2B \rho_0 s) %2B \frac{\partial }{\partial x} (\rho_0 u %2B \rho_0 s u) = 0$

Rearranging and noting that ambient density does not change with time or position and that the condensation multiplied by the velocity is a very small number:

$\frac{\partial s}{\partial t} %2B \frac{\partial }{\partial x} u = 0$

Euler's Force equation (conservation of momentum) is the last needed component. In one dimension the equation is:

$\rho \frac{D u}{D t} %2B \frac{\partial P}{\partial x} = 0$ ,

where $D/Dt$ represents the convective, substantial or material derivative, which is the derivative at a point moving with medium rather than at a fixed point.

Linearizing the variables:

$(\rho_0 %2B\rho_0 s)\left( \frac{\partial }{\partial t} %2B u \frac{\partial }{\partial x} \right) u %2B \frac{\partial }{\partial x} (P_0 %2B p) = 0$ .

Rearranging and neglecting small terms, the resultant equation becomes:

$\rho_0\frac{\partial u}{\partial t} %2B \frac{\partial p}{\partial x} = 0$ .

Taking the time derivative of the continuity equation and the spatial derivative of the force equation results in:

$\frac{\partial^2 s}{\partial t^2} %2B \frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial x \partial t} = 0$

$\rho_0 \frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial x \partial t} %2B \frac{\partial^2 p}{\partial x^2} = 0$ .

Multiplying the first by $\rho_0$ , subtracting the two, and substituting the linearized equation of state,

$- \frac{\rho_0 }{B} \frac{\partial^2 p}{\partial t^2} %2B \frac{\partial^2 p}{\partial x^2} = 0$ .

The final result is

${ \partial^2 p \over \partial x ^2 } - {1 \over c^2} { \partial^2 p \over \partial t ^2 } = 0$

where $c = \sqrt{ \frac{B}{\rho_0 }}$ is the speed of propagation.

In three dimensions

Equation

Feynman^[1] derives the wave equation that describes the behaviour of sound in matter in three dimensions as:

$\nabla ^2 p - {1 \over c^2} { \partial^2 p \over \partial t ^2 } = 0$

where $\nabla ^2$ is the Laplace operator, $p$ is the acoustic pressure (the local deviation from the ambient pressure), and where $c$ is the speed of sound.

Solution

The following solutions are obtained by separation of variables in different coordinate systems. They are phasor solutions, that is they have an implicit time-dependence factor of $e^{i\omega t}$ where $\omega = 2 \pi f$ is the angular frequency. The explicit time dependence is given by

$p(r,t,k) = \operatorname{Real}\left[p(r,k) e^{i\omega t}\right]$

Here $k = \omega/c \$ is the wave number.

Cartesian coordinates

$p(r,k)=Ae^{\pm ikr}$ .

Cylindrical coordinates

$p(r,k)=AH_0^{(1)}(kr) %2B \ BH_0^{(2)}(kr)$ .

where the asymptotic approximations to the Hankel functions, when $kr\rightarrow \infty$ , are

$H_0^{(1)}(kr) \simeq \sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi kr}}e^{i(kr-\pi/4)}$

$H_0^{(2)}(kr) \simeq \sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi kr}}e^{-i(kr-\pi/4)}$ .

Spherical coordinates

$p(r,k)=\frac{A}{r}e^{\pm ikr}$ .

Depending on the chosen Fourier convention, one of these represents an outward travelling wave and the other an unphysical inward travelling wave. The inward travelling wave is only unphysical because of the singularity that occurs at r=0; inward travelling waves do exist.

References

^ ^a ^b Richard Feynman, Lectures in Physics, Volume 1, 1969, Addison Publishing Company, Addison

Acoustic wave equation

Contents

In one dimension

Equation

Solution

Derivation

In three dimensions

Equation

Solution

Cartesian coordinates

Cylindrical coordinates

Spherical coordinates

References

See also