How does a certain material/element affect a sound wave?

Title: Material VS. Sound

The experiment is a test to see what kind of materials including: plastic, cardboard, cloth and
wood affect sound waves.
Abstract
We wanted to do this experiment because after we did a lab in class and watched Brian
demonstrate how different sound waves interfere with each other we were motivated and
interested to learn more about what kind of things affect a sound wave. Our questions is how
does certain materials/elements affect a sound wave? Our hypothesis is that the thicker the
material used the the smaller the sound wave because having a thicker material such as wood
will make the soundwave harder to move through. This hypothesis was correct, our question
was clearly answered and we found interesting results!Some soundwaves became shorter and
quieter when the different materials were used, while for our constant variable (the
speaker/phone without any material or object covering it ) was much louder. When we put the
speaker underneath the glass, the sound waves turned out to be 21.3dB, when we put the
speaker inside the glass, it was 21.7dB. When the phone/speaker was placed in a large
cardboard box it was 21.1dB and a smaller cardboard box was 22.5dB With plastic we received
21.8dB and cloth was 21.4dB. Lastly, we put the speaker inside of wood, and it was proven that
this material made the sound waves more quiet and shorter. With our constant variable, it was
evidence that this was the longest and loudest sound wave with a reaction of 30.0dB. These
results are accurate because we made sure to keep the sound wave curator in the exact same
spot when each material was used, we kept the speaker at the same volume level, and used a
constant sound for each material used throughout the experiment.
Introduction After we did a Slinky lab in class and watched Brian demonstrate how different sound waves
interfere with each other we were intrigued to learn even more about how sound waves work.
We are doing an experiment to find out what kind of materials affect sound waves. In other
words we want to know what variables affect the length and volume a sound wave produces. To
do this we used a speaker on our iPhone, and several different materials such as plastic, wood,
glass, cardboard and cloth to see how the soundwaves reacted. Sound waves cause a part of
the ear to vibrate, this vibration affects sensory receptors in the inner ear called hair cells,
triggering the transmission of auditory messages to the brain. The Physics classroom states
that A wave is a disturbance of a medium which transports energy through the medium without
permanently transporting matter. There are a variety of ways to categorize waves. One way to
categorize waves is to say that there are Longitudinal and Transverse waves. In a Transverse
wave, the medium is replaced in a direction perpendicular to the direction of energy transport.
Sound waves are the best example of longitudinal waves says Raymond A. Serway in the
book Essentials of College Physics.

Question and Hypothesis:

Our question we are trying to answer is how does certain materials/elements affect a sound
wave? If the material used affects the sound wave then we would guess that the thicker the
material the smaller the sound wave because having a thicker material will make the sound
wave harder to go through.
Methods & Materials - Done
To conduct this experiment, you need two smartphones one that has downloaded the app
Oscillo (this app will help calculate the soundwaves, you can find it in the app store) and
another phone used as a speaker to project the sound. Open the app on the one phone and set
it on a hard-flat surface, you will then cover it with different materials/objects such as, glass,
plastic, cardboard, cloth and wood while the other phone is projecting a sound such as a text
tone to make it consistent. Keep in mind that you want the speaker/sound being projected to
be generally around the same level for more accurate results. The same goes for the Oscillo
app set the volume on the other phone to be the same throughout. After you test each material
take descriptive notes on how the sound waves interacted, no detail is too small. For some
materials we decided to test them twice for more accurate results. Remember that you will also
need to record and test the effects a soundwave have with no material covering it!
You will need...
1. A sheet of paper and writing utensil to record the results
2. A hard surface to work on
3. Different materials/elements of plastic, glass, cloth of some sort, cardboard and a
sheet of wood to set the iphone under or inside.
4. Two smartphones. On only one of the phones you will need to download the app
Oscillo located in the app store. You will use the other phone to play the sound (text
tone or somethings that has the same note throughout) and the other phone for the app
that will receive and calculate the sound waves.

Results
During this experiment, we realized that the soundwaves became shorter and quieter when
the different materials were used, while for our constant variable, it was much louder. When we
put the speaker underneath the glass, the sound waves turned out to be 21.3dB, when we put
the speaker inside the glass, it was 21.7dB. When we put the phone/speaker into a large box it

was 21.1dB, and a smaller box was 22.5dB.With plastic we got 21.8dB and cloth was 21.4dB.
Lastly, we put the speaker inside of wood, and it was proven that this material was the material
that made the sound waves more quiet and shorter which was 20.2dB. With our constant
variable, it was evidence that this was the longest and loudest sound wave with a reaction of
30.0dB. We know our results are accurate because we made sure to keep the sound wave
curator in the exact same spot when each material was used, we also kept the speaker at the
same volume level, and used a constant sound for each material used throughout the
experiment.
Plastic

21.8

Inside
glass

Under
glass

Small
cardboard

Big

glass

box

21.7

21.3

22.5

Cloth

Inside
wood

Normal

21.4

20.2

30.0

cardboard

21.1

Discussion
We did this experiment because we were curious about what kind of objects would affect
sound waves. Our group was fairly confident that the results we received were accurate due to
the amount of times of which we repeated the experiment. We concluded that the soundwave
became shorter and quieter when the different materials that were used, but for our constant
variable (using the two phones without any material or object covering it) was much louder.
Once we finished the experiment we saw that our hypothesis was indeed correct. Throughout
the experiment we established that the independent variable surely had an effect on the
dependent variable simply because once we changed the material the sound waves m/s would
shift. The first time we did this experiment, we used a song to calculate the soundwaves but,
later we realized that the affect the sound waves had on the song would be inaccurate. The
following day we re-did the experiment once again but with a constant note like a Laaaaaa.
Doing this made sure that we would have the best and most accurate results.

Bibliography:
Serway, Raymond A. "Sound as a Longitudinal Wave." Sound as a Longitudinal Wave. N.p., n.d.
Web. 11 May 2016.
"Longitudinal Pulse." Longitudinal Pulse. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2016.