Longitudinal waves in a submerged cylindrical rod

This study is concerned with longitudinal displacement waves propagating in an elastic cylindrical rod submerged in a viscous fluid. Provided that the wave propagation velocity in the rod is small compared with the velocity of sound in the surrounding fluid and the wavelength is large compared with the thickness of the boundary layer around the rod, an analytical relation is obtained between the wave number and the frequency. The presence of the fluid makes the waves disperse-the short waves become faster than the long ones.