rijke's tube

School lab physics demo about standing waves and resonance. Quite a neat, short little science demo, and as with many physics demos, permanently reusable.

The tube: Scrap metal tubing (aluminium of steel), cut to size. Metal mesh was a wrecked bunsen gauze, middle white powdery material removed, cut to size and fitted snugly about 5-6 inches from the heated end. This tube also had a poster-holder tube slid over it for a safer cooler tube to handle and to also enable a trombone effect to the sound produced (achieved by slide-tromboning the sleeve up to lengthen the effective length of the Rijke tube once heated, the tube bottom end held with pliers and the poster holder tube sleeve slid upwards and back a few times - trombone effect not shown in this clip however).

Demo: Bunsen on strong blue flame is used to heat up the wire mesh 30-60 secs as shown in this video until estimated to be glowing red hot. Move the tube off the flame. The Tube will resonate with a loud pleasant low pitch note corresponding to the standing wave generated. You can make the demo more visual by setting up a microphone hooked up to an oscilloscope to view the wave signal on the oscilloscope screen.

Hazard and safety: Bunsen flame, hot tube, hot mesh inside, so use pliers and/or heatproof gloves to handle. Safety glasses recommended. Make sure too before each demo that the wire mesh is snug and tight inside, so it does not fall out..which can be tricky if it is glowing hot.

Thanks to teacher training mentor of a few years back, Andy Blower, Physics teacher and Head of Science at Burford School, Oxfordshire for first showing me this demo.

Google 'rijke tube wiki' to get the scientific explanation of the demo, i.e. about standing waves and how heating this tube generates them.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• bellerbys
• college
• oxford
• rijke
• rijke's
• tube
• physics
• science
• experiment
• jamelikat

[rafaelpoeta2]

SUPER LEGAL! VIU????

[Mrgids345]

what is the exact type of tubing are you using, what is the exact type of metal you are using and how are you getting the metal to stay in the tube. I am making a rijke tube for a school project and would really appreciate a response thanks