The wave beating produced by circular plane pistons

The physics textbooks presents the fundamental concepts of wave beating from an interference process of two plane waves at the time domain. In this work, we propose a teaching practice, based on computational simulation, at undergraduate level, combining the beating caused by waves transmitted from two plane circular pistons vibrating on thickness mode with the resulting acoustic field. The proposal leads to the perception of the beating at the spatial domain. The results show that the pressure amplitude generated from the beating has periodic variations along the central axis from a boundary location. This boundary is determined by the number of extreme values and the ratio between source radius and wavelength.

Keywords:
Rayleigh integral; acoustic wave; interference