Question

Sound above 20khz cannot be heard by Homo sapiens. (Ultrasonic sounds)

So my question is....What actually happens to these kind of sounds?

I mean they simply cannot be heard as infrasonic sounds or it just affect our ears or smthg else.

I just wanna know

#hate physics but passionate about it
(+_+)

Answer 1

From a technical point of view the Ear is a System,which can be modeled as a Band pass filter with bandwidth of about 20KHz with upper and lower cutoff frequencies at approximately 20KHz and 20Hz respectively.
Now the Function of this Band-pass filter is to Attenuate all frequencies higher than 20KHz and also frequencies below 20Hz,Thus the Ear membrane vibrates only to frequencies that fall within 20Hz to 20KHz.