Sound Wave Energy Resulting from the Impact of Water Drops on the Soil Surface

PLoS One. 2016 Jul 7;11(7):e0158472. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158472. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

The splashing of water drops on a soil surface is the first step of water erosion. There have been many investigations into splashing-most are based on recording and analysing images taken with high-speed cameras, or measuring the mass of the soil moved by splashing. Here, we present a new aspect of the splash phenomenon's characterization the measurement of the sound pressure level and the sound energy of the wave that propagates in the air. The measurements were carried out for 10 consecutive water drop impacts on the soil surface. Three soils were tested (Endogleyic Umbrisol, Fluvic Endogleyic Cambisol and Haplic Chernozem) with four initial moisture levels (pressure heads: 0.1 kPa, 1 kPa, 3.16 kPa and 16 kPa). We found that the values of the sound pressure and sound wave energy were dependent on the particle size distribution of the soil, less dependent on the initial pressure head, and practically the same for subsequent water drops (from the first to the tenth drop). The highest sound pressure level (and the greatest variability) was for Endogleyic Umbrisol, which had the highest sand fraction content. The sound pressure for this soil increased from 29 dB to 42 dB with the next incidence of drops falling on the sample The smallest (and the lowest variability) was for Fluvic Endogleyic Cambisol which had the highest clay fraction. For all experiments the sound pressure level ranged from ~27 to ~42 dB and the energy emitted in the form of sound waves was within the range of 0.14 μJ to 5.26 μJ. This was from 0.03 to 1.07% of the energy of the incident drops.

MeSH terms

  • Acoustics
  • Particle Size
  • Physical Phenomena
  • Poland
  • Pressure
  • Soil / chemistry*
  • Sound*
  • Water / chemistry*

Substances

  • Soil
  • Water

Grants and funding

This work was partly financed from: 1) National Science Centre, Poland in the frame of project no. 2014/14/E/ST10/00851; 2) Statutory Research of Institute of Agrophysics Polish Academy of Sciences; and 3) Statutory Research of Department of Mechanics and Vibroacoustics University of Science and Technology Krakow No. 11.11.130.955. The authors declare that all the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal) were listed and the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.