Modeling cicada sound production and propagation

The paper investigates the sound signals radiated by cicadas and study why their "songs" are so loud. The sound pulses emanating from a class of insects are believed to come from small oscillators such as cicada tymbals, a vibrating drum-like membrane with some initially stored energy and a resonating air sac - the abdomen. The system is very efficient in a way that the resulting sound is very loud. The paper determines a region close to the cicada where the sound signals have strong nonlinear characteristics. Just outside this region the propagation of the sound signals are modeled by the Mendousse-Burgers' equation. The sound production mechanism is investigated in terms of "buckling" phenomenon to determine the sound pulses in atmospheric air medium. The resulting numerical results are very encouraging when compared with the data from the microphone readings.