How does the speed of sound in air compare with the speed of sound in water or steel?

Answer 1

The speed of sound in any medium is directly proportional to the density of that medium.

While I do not know the exact numeric answer to your question I can tell you that the speed of sound in those mediums would be ordered as follows (in ascending order)

# River Water # Sea Water # Steel

Answer 2

Some examples of the speeds of sound:

v_air = 340 m/s.

v_water = 1482 m/s

v_steel= 4500 -6000 m/s

Short and simple explanation:

Sound is a compression (or pressure) wave.

There are two things that affect the speed of sound, the density of a material and its compressibility. Specifically, the speed of sound is proportional to the square root of the ratio.

v=sqrt(B/rho)

v=speed of sound.

B= bulk modulus. (There are different names for this material property such as coefficient of stiffness).

rho= mass density.

A greater density of a material tends to slow the velocity of sound but a greater stiffness tends to increase the velocity of sound.

The bulk modulus of water is 15,000 times greater than air while the density of water is not even one thousand times greater.

Bulk modulus wins out and the velocity of sound in water is more than four times the velocity in air.

This relationship causes the speed of sound to be greater in most materials, but there are exceptions.

More Details:

The reader should be warned that there is much more to sound in materials than one see in the simple compression waves of air. Further, materials like steel come in various compositions and the micro structure depends on the processes that make it, so there is no such thing as a single number fore the speed of sound in steel.

Here are a few typical numbers for bulk modulus (stiffness) and density.

Air(adiabatic)

B= 1.42×10^5 Pa rho= 1.22 kg/m^3

Water

B=2.2×10^9 Pa rho= 1,000 kg/m^3

Steel

B= 160 x10^9 Pa rho=7,860 kg/m^3

v_air = 340 m/s.

v_water = 1482 m/s

v_steel= 4500 m/s

Caveat: As stated above, these numbers should be taken as approximate since various complications such as temperature and composition have not been explained.

Answer 3

The speeds of sound in Air, Water and Steel will all be different because of their different densities. The larger the density the slower the sound waves will travel (you may have to check that last sentence, I'm not entirely sure :P )

Air (if you mean standard air conditions, which you probably do) = 340 m/s

Water = 1435 m/s

Steel = 5100 m/s

m/s = Meters per second

Hope this helped :)

Answer 4

Sound speed is depend on medium. Steel speed has a great speed when compare to the air.