Application of Gauss' Law in Acoustics

TL;DR

This paper explores how Gauss' law can be applied in acoustics to relate sound source power to sound intensity flow, enabling simplified calculations of sound distribution for various source shapes.

Contribution

It demonstrates the practical use of Gauss' law in acoustics, extending inverse square law principles to sound wave propagation and analyzing different source geometries.

Findings

Gauss' law can be applied to acoustic power and sound intensity.

The method simplifies calculating sound distribution for various source shapes.

Practical examples show effective use of Gaussian surfaces in acoustics.

Abstract

Practical application of Gauss' law in acoustics is not a very well known method. However, any inverse square law behavior can be formulated in the way similar to Gauss' law, which allows us to extend the same principle to sound waves propagation. We show in this paper how the acoustic power of sound source can be related to the sound intensity flow through a given surface by means of the Gauss' law. Several different sound-source shapes, important in practical applications, are analyzed by means of the Gauss' law. A suitable choice of the Gaussian surface allows us to obtain the simple and straightforward method for calculating the sound intensity distribution in space.