Tuning Forks Lab Report

The purpose of this lab was to observe the phenomenon of resonance in an open ended cylindrical tube and use resonance to determine the velocity of sound in air at regular temperatures. A hypothesis for this lab was that if the frequency of the tuning fork increased, then the length of the tube to achieve resonance will increase because of the high amplitude of the vibration. The resonance of the open-closed tube was found through these steps. First, the tube was filled with water with an inner tube inside the outer tube. The water temperature was measured. The tuning fork was struck on the rubber stopper and was held above the water column. The tube’s length was adjusted until the volume of the sound increased and measured the length of

The tuning fork’s vibrations were directing along the length of the tube with its prongs lined up along it. The tube’s length was adjusted until the volume of the sound was at its highest amplitude. Then the length of the column was measured by its resonance. These steps were repeated for the other two tuning forks. The hypothesis was not supported because the highest frequency had the lowest length of the tube. It was the opposite, with the lowest frequency tuning forks that caused resonance at a higher length. There were many observations, calculations (wavelength, the speed of sound, and percent area from actual speed of sound), a graph comparing the length of two different tubes, and analysis questions. The results of the data showed that the tuning forks with the highest frequency had the shortest tube length. For example, for the 512 Hz of the open-open tube, the distance was .335m and the open-closed tube had .300m. This resulted in the wavelength to be the lowest also. Therefore, the lowest frequencies had the largest tube distance and wavelength. Open-open had .647m and the open-closed had .630m of distance. The tube with the least percent error and closest to the actual speed of sound was the open-open tube with a frequency of 512