Development, construction and testing of a bamboo resonance tube for the measurement of the speed of sound in air

• Main Author: Pimentel, Serapion E., Jr.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1983
• Subjects: Resonators; Sound > Speed; Bamboo; Physics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1107
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study is focused on the workability of a bamboo tube as a suitable substitute for the standard glass tube as a resonator in the measurement of the speed of sound in air by the resonance method. Two types of apparatus were used, namely the improvised immersion type for the bamboo tubes and the reservoir model for the standard glass tube. Two pairs of bamboo tubes were selected whose diameters were from 2.5 cm. to 3.5 cm. with almost identical thickness. One pair closely matched the dimensions of the glass tube. One of each pair of the bamboo tubes were treated with varnish not only as a preservative but also to determine if the treatment of varnish will affect the measurement of the speed of sound in air. The research included the design, construction and testing of the immersion type apparatus whose performance was compared to the standard reservoir model. Two tuning forks were used, the C-512 and C-384. This study likewise compared the performance of a slightly curved bamboo tube with an uneven cross-sectional area and that of a fairly straight bamboo tube as a sound resonator. The testing was done indoors in a non-airconditioned room at temperatures ranging from 29 to 30 degrees Celsius. Outdoor test was discarded due to the unpredictable temperature fluctuations from 28 to 33 degrees Celsius. For the computation of the theoretical speed of sound in air at any given temperature, the temperature of the air column inside the resonance tube was applied in the formula, VT = V0 + 0.6T, where T is the internal temperature in degrees Celsius when the was conducted instead of the room temperature (external).The test statistics employed were the two-tailed t-test of the difference between means, one-way ANOVA and Lunnet's test. Findings indicated that there was no significant difference in all resonance tubes at the 1st resonance point using the C-512 and G-384 tuning forks. However, at the 2nd resonance point, the curved, varnished bamboo tube with an uneven cross-sectional areas differed significantly with the