Energy Flux Streamlines versus Acoustic Rays for Modeling Interaction with Rigid Boundaries: A Lloyds Mirror Experiment

An energy flux streamline model was developed in support of a simple Lloyd's mirror experiment originally intended for use by high school students wherein 10 000 Hz harmonic sound, emitted from a roughly 10 cm diameter baffled loudspeaker, was reflected off a floor, treated as a rigid boundary. The model is used to draw out similarities and differences between energy flux streamlines and acoustic rays. Particular attention is paid to conditions and angles of reflection that hold for acoustic rays reflected from a rigid boundary versus the conditions that hold for the equivalent reflection and reflection angles of energy flux streamlines.