Greetings again my dear friends of this prestigious platform, for no one is a secret that around us a lot of phenomena are developed and among them we find the sound and in turn other intrinsic phenomena when it propagates through some material or elastic medium such as air, solid or liquid, therefore, we will relate generally with the reflection of sound and its application in the field of technology.

Introduction

Any of us can express that our auditory senses are constantly in a permanent process of picking up some kind of sound in our environment, and such sound, of course, is originated by the vibration of certain component particles of an object or body that emits such sound, and this phenomenon can be originated by artificial or natural sources such as the vibration of our vocal chords.

We often hear about the frequency of sound and it represents the number of waves that manage to pass in one second through a given reference point, where we implement as a unit of measurement the hertz or Hertz (Hz) and these units already begin to relate us to the world of technology, especially in the field of communication.

As we have expressed there are several intrinsic phenomena that originate when the sound goes from one side to another, as is the reflection, and this intrinsic phenomenon will expand a little saying that can be both specular and diffuse.

The above reflections will depend on the surface on which the sound waves impact, for example, when the sound rays impact with a flat surface we see the formation of two equal angles, i.e., the angle of incidence and the reflected angle, and these characteristics determine a specular reflection as we can see in the following figure 1.

Figure 1. Specular reflection of sound waves

In the previous figure we can see the behavior of sound waves on a flat surface, however, the opposite occurs when we talk about diffuse reflection.

When we refer to the diffuse reflection of sound, it is important to take into account the description of a smooth surface because the type of reflection to be taken into account will depend on it, then, it is necessary to relate the wavelength of the emitted sound with those asymmetries or irregularities of the surface with which these waves collide.

In relation to the above, we can say that if the asymmetries or irregularities are smaller than the wavelengths of the sound, then a diffuse reflection will hardly occur, since the surface can be considered smooth or flat, and with this, we would have a reflection similar to the one in Figure 1, i.e., specular.

When we find surfaces whose irregularities or asymmetries are equal to or greater than the wavelengths of the emitted sound, we would be observing a diffuse reflection of the sound waves as shown in figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Diffuse reflection of sound waves

Reflection of sound and technology

As a human species we have been able to implement any kind of learning obtained from our environment and thus take it to the wonderful field of technology, and undoubtedly, the phenomenon of sound represents one of them, and all this despite being a very abstract knowledge and that usually our ears can capture as long as these sound waves are within the audible range of our senses of hearing, there are many applications that sound has achieved within the area of technology, among which we can mention some as in the sonar of ships, ultrasound scans, also within the closed scenarios where the reflection allows to concentrate the sound at a certain point as we can see below in the following figure 3.

Figure 3. Concentration of sound at a receiving point through its reflection

In the previous figure 3 we could notice some important applications of the intrinsic phenomenon of sound reflection in our lives.

Conclusion

Our environment is full of all kinds of phenomena such as the essential sound that we can capture through our natural auditory systems (ears), and hence the importance of being able to understand any knowledge related to these essential phenomena so important for our existence.

Sound, like light, is affected in its propagation when it encounters some kind of obstacle in its path, and this is very frequent since we are surrounded by a large number of bodies or objects that in one way or another affect the normal propagation of sound from one space-time to another.

In this opportunity we analyze in a general way the phenomenon of sound reflection either in a specular or diffuse way, and this characteristic depending on the geometric shape and irregularities of the surface with which these sound waves impact as shown in Figures 1 and 2, and also some applications of this phenomenon of reflection in our lives through technology as shown in Figure 3.

Until another opportunity my dear friends.

Note: The images are my own and were created using Power Point and the animated gif was created with the PhotoScape application.

Bibliographic References

[1]Física del sonido

[2] Reflection and Transmission of Sound Waves..