I. On the circulation of air observed in Kundt’s tubes, and on some allied acoustical problems

Abstract Experimenters in Acoustics have discovered more than one set of phenomena apparently depending for their explanation upon the existence of regular currents of air, resulting from vibratory motion, of which theory has as yet rendered no account. This is not, perhaps, a matter for surprise, when we consider that such currents, involving as they do circulation of the fluid, could not arise in the absence of friction, however great the extent of vibration. And even when we are prepared to include in our investigations the influence of friction, by which the motion of fluid in the neighbourhood of solid bodies may be greatly modified, we have no chance of reaching an explanation, if, as is usual, we limit ourselves to the supposition of infinitely small motion and neglect the squares and higher powers of the mathematical symbols by which it is expressed. In the present paper three problems of this kind are considered, two of which are illustrative of phenomena observed by Faraday. In these problems the fluid may be treated as incompressible. The more important of them relates to the currents generated over a vibrating plate, arranged as in Chladni’s experiments. It was discovered by Savart that very fine powder does not collect itself at the nodal lines, as does sand in the production of Chladni’s figures, but gathers itself into a cloud which, after hovering for a time, settles itself over the places of maximum vibration. This was traced by Faraday to the action of currents of air, rising from the plate at the places of maximum vibration, and falling back to it at the nodes. In a vacuum the phenomena observed by Savart do not take place, all kinds of powder collecting at the nodes. In the investigation of this, as of the other problems, the motion is supposed to take place in two dimensions.