Saltwater and Sound

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine if sound will travel faster in different salinities of water. I believe that as the salinity increases, the sound will travel slower. Methods/Materials The salinities of the Artic Ocean (20 parts per thousand [ppt]), Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans (35ppt), the Salton Sea (44ppt), the Mono Lake (87ppt), and the Dead Sea (210ppt) were used as guidelines for my experiments. I used two transducers and set a signal of a four hertz burst at 1,000,00 cycles per second. The distance of the two transducers over the delay of sound equaled the speed of sound in water. Results The higher the salinity became, the faster the sound traveled. The speed of sound ranged from 1,488.1 meters/second to 1,718.4 meters/second between 20 and 210 ppt. Conclusions/Discussion I found that the speed of sound changes greatly as the salinity is increased. I believe that this is due to a density factor rather then what I originally thought which was that the salt would obstruct and slow down the sound waves thus making the speed of sound slower.

Competition history

• CSEF 2004 Physics & Astronomy · Entry J1527

Resources

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