The limitations of Snell’s law for the refraction of finite beams

✍ Scribed by Elfgard Kühnicke

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 685 KB
• Volume: 35
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0165-2125
• DOI: 10.1016/s0165-2125(00)00079-2

✦ Synopsis

Because the refracted sound field of a finite beam extremely depends on the size and on the frequency of the generating element, Snell's law in many cases is not applicable to calculate the refraction angle of a finite beam. Approaches using plane reflection and transmission coefficients in connection with a discretization of the source into elementary point sources are more exact. This paper demonstrates that the application of plane reflection and transmission coefficients requires a point to point distance smaller than a half wavelength in order to obtain an accurate sound field of the refracted beam.