Dispersion in acoustic waveguides - A teaching laboratory experiment

A laboratory experiment for undergraduate students in mathematics and physi cs is introduced. The experiment concentrates on dispersion in acoustic wav eguides, The dispersion relation is measured for different propagation mode s and its effect on the transmission of signals is examined, looking at it from several points of view, with the main focus on Fourier aspects. The di stortion caused by single mode dispersion is explained in terms of the conv olution relation between the input signals and the impulse response of the waveguides. (C) 1999 American Association of Physics Teachers.