Acoustics – Does Ultrasonic Sound Travel the Same Way as Normal Sound?

acousticsultrasound

Please excuse my terminologies if they are not accurate as I am not an expert in physics.

For the sake of my question, if I may, I would simplistically call "ultrasonic sound" the sound that human cannot hear, and only some animals such as dogs/cats/whales can hear. "Normal sound" is the sound that both human and dog can hear.

For example, here is the link to wikipedia that describes the hearing ranges of human and some animals such as dogs/cats/whales : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_range#In_animals

I know that "normal sound" can travel, bounce back and forth from many hard surfaces, and have echos. Does "ultrasonic sound" behave the same way ?


For example, if both "Ultrasonic sound" and "human audible sound" are traveling through a normal residential wooden fence, do they both make it equally well to the other side ?

Best Answer

Ultrasound and human-audible sound are governed by the same physicals laws, so there are no fundamental differences.

Ultrasound just has higher frequencies and smaller wavelength. That manifests itself the same way as it does for different audible frequencies (bass vs treble).

For examples:

  1. The higher the frequency, the higher is absorption in air
  2. The smaller the wavelength, the smaller the object the sound interacts with and the more it haves like "light beams", i.e specular reflection instead of diffuse reflection

Does "ultrasonic sound" behave the same way ?

Yes.