Waves
Frequency versus wave speed
Use the flume and the wave maker to explore the speed of waves in the tank. For this demo it would be nice to fill the tank as deep as Nik and Andrew will let you because we would like to investigate deep-water waves.
- Start with low frequency forcing and get an estimate of phase speed (crest speed) and compare with water depth.
- try and suspend some particles in the water column part way down and note the path they take as the waves pass. A video would be great here.
- Increase the frequency to the point where the wave speed no longer depends on the frequency (if possible). This will be tricky - the wavelength of the waves should be about 1/10 the water depth (or shorter).
- take measurements of wavespeed at a few points and plot versus frequency.
- when you have deep-water waves (or as close as we can get), try to get a video or particle motion through the water column again (and show the class during the demo). What is different about the character of the water motion?
- try and make a “group” of waves at these frequencies by starting and stoping the wavemaker. Try to capture how the crests out run the front of the packet and emerge from the back of the packet (this is really easier in a much larger body of water like a swimming pool).
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWi_KpBy8kU
Last Modified: 12 December 2024 Licence: Creative Commons Attribution required, non-commercial uses (CC BY-NC 4.0)