title: Direct measurement of the wavelength of sound waves in the human skull.
abstract: The results of a study of the three-dimensional vibration of two dry human skulls in response to harmonic excitation are presented. The vibratory response exhibits three distinct types of motion across the range of audible frequencies. At low frequencies below 1000 Hz, whole-head quasi-rigid motion is seen. At the middle frequencies between 1000 and 6000 Hz, the motion exhibits a series of increasingly complex modal patterns. Above 6000 Hz, the response is wavelike and clear wavefronts can be distinguished in the vibration data. In this regime the relationship between wavelength and frequency is calculated and compared to a number of theories of skull vibration that have been proposed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dalhousie University, 1360 Barrington Street, Room C-303 Sexton Campus, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 1Z1, Canada. carmen.mcknight@gmail.com
authors.forename: Carmen L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: McKnight
authors.forename: Darrel A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Doman
authors.forename: Jeremy A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Manohar
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bance
authors.forename: Robert B A
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Adamson
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation; D001844:Bone Conduction; D004301:Doppler Effect; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006801:Humans; D007834:Lasers; D016014:Linear Models; D008954:Models, Biological; D009038:Motion; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D013016:Sound; D013997:Time Factors; D014732:Vibration