Question
Question: The velocity of sound in air at \(27{}^\circ C\) is 340m/s. Calculate the velocity of sound in air a...
The velocity of sound in air at 27∘C is 340m/s. Calculate the velocity of sound in air at 127∘C.
Solution
As a first step, you could recall the expression of velocity in terms of Temperature. Assuming all the other quantities in that expression are constant, we could find the proportionality relation between velocity and temperature. Thus we could find the answer easily from it.
Formula used:
Velocity,
v=MγRT
Complete answer:
In the question we are given the velocity of sound in air at room temperature that is 27∘C to be 340m/s and we are supposed to find the velocity of sound in air at a greater temperature, that is, 127∘C.
All we have to do here is to find the relation between the velocity of sound in air with temperature. We know that this relation could be given by,
v=MγRT
Where, γ is the adiabatic index, R is the universal gas constant, T is the absolute temperature and M is the molecular mass.
Since the medium remains the same (air) in both the given cases we could say that γ and M remains constant and also, R is already a constant. So, we could make this conclusion that,
vαT
⇒v2v1=T2T1 …………………………………………. (1)
Before substituting, let us convert the temperatures into their SI units.
T1=27∘C=300K
T2=127∘C=400K
Now, we could substitute these in (1) to get,
v2=v1T1T2=340300400
∴v2=392.6m/s
Therefore, we found the velocity of sound in air at 127∘C to be 392.6m/s.
Note:
In problems involving the calculation with temperatures, make sure that you convert the given temperatures into their respective SI units. If you forget to do this step, you will get the answer wrong. We have taken molecular mass M and adiabatic index to be constant as they are dependent on the medium and the medium remains the same in both cases.