Visualization of internal caustics in cylindrical liquid cavities with a pulsed schlieren system

Visualizations of the acoustic field produced by relection/refraction of bursts of plane longitudinal waves in the water-filled cylindrical cavity of a solid matrix have been made with a pulsed schlieren system. The positions of the cusp points of the caustics formed by successive internal reflections in the cavity have been compared with their theoretical geometrical values. The acoustic field produced by the reflection of a plane wave on a half-cylindrical mirror has also been studied and compared to the field in the vicinity of a caustic, according to the Pearcey approximation