written by Wolfgang Christian

The Driven Wave Machine model simulates a wave machine driven by a sinusoidal oscillator.  The machine consists of horizontal bars welded to a torsion rod that is perpendicular to the bars.  The simulation allows the user to change the number of bars, the drive frequency, and the boundary conditions.   The simulation also allows the user to change the lengths of the bars, thereby simulating the effect of a wave propagating in a non-uniform medium.

The Driven Wave Machine model is a supplemental simulation for the article "Standing Waves in a Nonuniform Medium" by Paul Gluck in The Physics Teacher 49(2), 76-77 (2011) and has been approved by the authors and The Physics Teacher editor.  The Driven Wave Machine model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the ejs_mech_osc_chains_DrivenWaveMachine.jar file will run the program if Java is installed.

• Download ejs_mech_WaveMachineDriven.jar - 1881kb Java Archive File

Last Modified June 3, 2014

This file has previous versions.

The source code zip archive contains an XML representation of the Driven Wave Machine model.   Unzip this archive in your EJS workspace to compile and run this model using EJS.

• Download ejs_mech_osc_chains_WaveMachineDriven.zip - 38kb Compressed File

Last Modified June 3, 2014

This file has previous versions.