Chapter 10 Question 4
 
a. With the aid of a diagram, explain how a standing wave is formed inside a closed tube. 4 marks
 
Standing wave in a closed tube is caused by the superposition of the incident waves and the reflected waves by the closed end and the open end. 1
Reflection at the closed end undergoes a p phase change. Thus, a node occurs.
Reflection at the open end does not have phase change. Thus, an anti-node occurs. 1
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b. Describe an experiment to measure the speed of sound in air using a closed tube. 4 marks 
 
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Erect the closed tube vertically with the open end above.
Place a tuning fork of known frequency f above the open end. Add water until resonance occurs (a loud sound is heard). 0.5
Mark the height of water. Then add water slowly until another resonance occurs. 0.5
The difference in position h of water level is one loop i.e. half wavelength.
  1
The speed of sound in air is given by
  1
 
c. State and explain the conditions for sound waves travelling between air and water to undergo total internal reflection. 3 marks
 
Sound waves travel more slowly in air than in water. Thus, when it enters into water it will bend away from the normal. 1
In particular, when the angle of incidence is equal to the critical angle, the angle of refraction is 90o.
When the angle of incidence is greater than the critical angle, total internal reflection of sound occurs. 1
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d. Describe an experiment to measure the speed of sound in copper using a copper rod of length about 1 m. Explain why a timing device with a precision of 1 ms is not appropriate to give an accurate result. 5 marks
 
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Suspend a copper rod XY of length d horizontally by two rubber bands. Connect the rod to a signal generator through an oscilloscope and a hammer as shown. 
As the copper rod is given a sharp tap with the hammer, a compression pulse travels from X and is reflected at Y as a rarefaction pulse.  1
The hammer remains in contact with the rod while the pulse travels from X to Y and then back to X again, i.e. a distance of 2d
The time of contact t is determined by the frequency setting f of the signal generator. If n complete cycles occurs on the CRO screen, then 1
 
The speed of sound in copper is given by
  1
The speed of sound in copper is about 5000 m s-1. Thus, the time of contact is about
  1
Thus, it is impossible to measure the time required using a timing device with precision less than 1 ms.
 
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