Acoustics: Sound Fields, Transducers and Vibration, 2nd Edition

4.9. Reflection of a plane wave from a plane

Reflections from a plane are specular, meaning that they are well defined because of the regular geometry of the reflecting surface, as opposed to diffuse, as in the case of an irregular reflecting object. In the latter case, the sound waves are reflected in many different directions. However, although a sphere reflects sound over a wide angle, as we shall see in Sections 12.3 and 12.4, the reflection is specular because the reflecting surface is regular. Refer to Fig. 4.11. A plane wave with amplitude p ˜ I is incident on a plane at x   =   0, the surface of which has a specific ...