Acoustic multipole source 2026-10-06
Acoustic sources may be organized by the number of spatial derivatives in their effective wave equation forcing. A direct scalar source is an acoustic monopole, a divergence of a force density an acoustic dipole, and a double divergence of a stress tensor an acoustic quadrupole.
Acoustic thickness noise 2026-10-07
Thickness noise is the sound generated by displacement of fluid by a moving impermeable body, represented by the surface acoustic monopole term. For a rigid body, , so its leading acoustic compact-source approximation has no net-volume monopole. Its local source need not vanish: a moving finite-volume body can radiate through higher spatial moments. A thin-body or negligible-volume approximation is needed when all such radiation is to be omitted.
In the incompressible near field of a spherical bubble, . Its volume-flux acoustic monopole is the displayed term at retarded time. The integrated surface pressure force vanishes by spherical symmetry, while the Lighthill stress tensor approximation has moment . Its leading compact acoustic quadrupole contribution is . For small fractional radius oscillation and compactness parameter , its size relative to the leading monopole is .
Distributional acoustic analogy across a moving interface Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
Mass and momentum flux defects at a moving interface add surface acoustic monopole and acoustic dipole terms to Lighthill acoustic analogy. For a physical conservative fluid shock wave, the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions set both defects to zero; the shock still affects distributional derivatives of the Lighthill stress tensor. A discontinuity alone is not independent mass or force injection.
Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation 2026-10-07
The Lighthill acoustic analogy for a moving body has a volume acoustic quadrupole, a surface acoustic monopole from acoustic thickness noise, and a surface acoustic dipole from acoustic loading noise. For an impermeable moving surface, with outward normal , normal surface speed , and fluid and body normal velocities equal, the surface mass coefficient is and the surface loading is the force exerted on the fluid. Schematically, the density-source equation isThe density perturbation is understood with the chosen interior extension. Permeable-surface versions have additional mass and momentum flux terms. Source approximations must distinguish local thickness radiation from cancellation of its compact net-volume contribution.
Mass-injection term in the acoustic analogy 2026-10-14
If the continuity equation has mass source and the conservative momentum equation has momentum source , elimination of momentum gives the displayed wave equation. With no imposed momentum source, its extra term is . A compact source of total mass rate radiates the acoustic monopole . The momentum source supplies an additional acoustic dipole; specifying mass injection alone does not fix that dipole.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 50 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
With a mass source, the continuity equation becomes . If the conservative momentum equation has no added source, repeating the elimination gives the mass-injection term in the acoustic analogy:More generally, injection can carry momentum. If its momentum source is , the additional term is ; prescribing alone does not determine this dipole contribution. The displayed monopole formula assumes no separately imposed momentum source.
Let be the total mass rate. Convolution with the retarded acoustic Green function, followed by the acoustic compact-source approximation, gives the extra acoustic monopoleThe stress quadrupole from the preceding part remains present. If required, a compact injected momentum rate adds the dipole .
A small pulsating bubble displaces liquid with volume flux and acts acoustically like a mass rate . Spherical symmetry makes this a monopole, withFor volume oscillation , the density amplitude is . At fixed volume-displacement amplitude, it scales as . Holding volume-flux amplitude fixed would instead give an scaling. The bubble must remain small compared with the wavelength, and a frequency-dependent dynamical bubble amplitude is a separate effect.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 74 4 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Interpret the surface delta as , so integration against it gives a surface integral. If is signed distance, this equals the notation directly. This convention is needed because an arbitrary rescaling of the level-set function must not change the physical source.
Define the volume flux and total pressure force . Here is the rate of change of body volume, not the volume itself. The surface acoustic monopole contributes, in the acoustic compact-source approximation,The surface acoustic dipole contributesThe second term is a nonradiating near-field term and is smaller in the acoustic far field. Writing with the observation point fixed, the leading augmentation is thereforeThe printed dipole coefficient is missing a factor . The extra inverse speed follows from differentiating , and is required dimensionally: the printed expression with has the units of density times speed. This corrected acoustic loading noise term also agrees with the far-field acoustic force and stress moments. The monopole coefficient is unchanged.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 70 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
In the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation, the other source types are a surface acoustic monopole associated with acoustic thickness noise, and a volume acoustic quadrupole involving the Lighthill stress tensor. On an impermeable material surface, fluid and surface normal velocities agree. There is no through-surface mass-flux source; the remaining thickness source is . For a rigid body, the leading acoustic compact-source approximation to that source hasThus there is no leading net-volume acoustic monopole. To neglect thickness radiation beyond that leading cancellation, assume negligible volume displacement, as for ideal thin blades, or that its higher multipoles are small compared with the retained acoustic loading noise. Rigidity alone does not make a moving finite-volume body's local thickness source identically zero.
The volume acoustic quadrupole may be neglected for low Mach number motion when exterior turbulent or nonlinear stresses do not provide a competing strong source. We also assume small linear acoustics perturbations, a uniform reference sound speed, and negligible relevant viscous and entropy sources. These are source-strength approximations, particularly important if a loading contribution itself cancels by symmetry. Under them, the retained acoustic dipole is the force exerted by the object on the fluid, with the sign used in the previous solution.
Let , , and . In the acoustic far field, is large compared with the object and . For a source of size with and small surface Mach number, source-dependent delays and the Doppler factor can be neglected to leading order. The surface integral then contains just the total force . Differentiating its retarded time, rather than its spreading factor, gives the radiating termThe sign follows from . Differentiating or the direction instead produces the lower-order near field. A constant total force does not radiate at this leading compact order.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 77 1 b ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Apply the moving-interface conservation jump identity first to mass, then to each momentum component. Write and , with all quantities understood piecewise on the two sides. Define the jumps of flux relative to the moving shock wave byThe global distributional conservation equations areDifferentiate the first in time and subtract the divergence of the second. With and the piecewise Lighthill stress tensor , this givesDerivatives act on the complete distributions, including their moving support. The acoustic quadrupole term represents momentum-stress fluctuations throughout the volume. The time derivative of the surface mass-flux defect is an acoustic monopole, representing injection or removal of mass/volume. The divergence of the surface momentum-flux defect is an acoustic dipole, representing a force sheet. This is the distributional acoustic analogy across a moving interface.
For an actual freely propagating fluid shock wave with no singular mass or momentum supply, the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions give and . Such a shock does not acquire independent monopole and force-sheet sources merely because it is discontinuous. Its effects remain in the distributional derivatives of , including singular derivatives of its jump. Nonzero surface sources are appropriate for an interface with exchange/forcing or for a formulation that omits one side of the fluid.
A shock does not, by itself, justify retaining the scaling. That estimate required a low-Mach number stress varying on the slow time . Fast shock motion, short time scales, or thermodynamic deviations can invalidate that estimate. If these same compact, slow-source assumptions remain valid for the integrated Lighthill stress tensor, its quadrupole estimate still follows, even distributionally. There is no universal replacement power deducible from the mere presence of a shock; nor should vanished physical flux defects be treated as additional independent radiation sources.
An aperture in a rigid plane with prescribed harmonic normal displacement radiates into a half-space. Superposing acoustic monopoles, each doubled by its same-sign rigid-wall image, gives the stated integral, where is the distance from aperture element to observer. In the acoustic far field, expanding to first order across the aperture identifies the angular radiation amplitude with the aperture's Fourier transform.