Standing Sound Waves - Practice Questions & MCQ

Standing waves

When two sets of progressive wave of same type (both longitudinal or both transverse) having the same amplitude and same time period or frequency or wavelength travelling along the same straight line with same speed in opposite directions superimpose, a new set of waves are formed. These are called stationary waves.

Some of the characteristics of standing waves :

(1) In this the disturbance is confined to a particular region between the starting point and reflecting point of the wave.
(2) In this there is no forward motion of the disturbance from one particle to the adjoining particle and so on, beyond this particular region.
(3) The total energy in stationary wave is twice the energy of each of incident and reflected wave. But there is no flow or transference of energy along the stationary wave.
(4) Points in a standing wave, which are permanently at rest. These are called nodes. The distance between two consecutive nodes is 

(5) The Points on the standing wave having maximum amplitude is known as antinodes. The distance between two consecutive antinodes is also 
(6) All the particles execute simple harmonic motion about their mean position (except those are at nodes) with the same time period.

Note - In standing waves, if the amplitude of component waves are not equal. Resultant amplitude at nodes will not be zero. It will be minimum . Because of this, some energy will pass across nodes and waves will be partially standing.

Let us take an example to understand and derive equation of standing wave - 

Let us take a string and when a string is under tension and set into vibration, transverse harmonic waves propagate along its length. If the length of string is fixed, reflected waves will also exist. These incident and reflected waves will superimpose to produce transverse stationary waves in a string

Now we can apply principle of superposition on this and get - 

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Standing Wave in a Closed Organ Pipe -

Organ pipes are the musical instrument which are used for producing musical sound by blowing air into the pipe. In this longitudinal stationary waves are formed due to superimposition of incident and reflected longitudinal waves.

A closed organ pipe is a cylindrical tube having an air column with one end closed. Sound waves are enters from a source vibrating near the open end. An ingoing pressure wave gets reflected from the fixed end. This inverted wave is again reflected at the open end. After two reflections, it moves towards the fixed end and interferes with the new wave sent by the source in that direction. The twice reflected wave has travelled an extra distance of 2 causing a phase advance of  
Similarly at open ends, the twice reflected wave suffered a phase change of  at the open end. 

So the phase difference is .  Also the waves interfere constructively if phase difference is 

Here n = 1,2,3.... But if we take n = 0,1,2,.... then the above equation can also be written as -      

So, the frequency can be written as - 

Standing Waves in Open Organ Pipes

General formula for wavelength -         

Then the first normal mode of vibration is -   

This is called fundamental frequency and the node so produced is called fundamental node or first harmonic.