This paper is mainly concerned with elastic and acoustic properties of vitrous silica besides the computation of phonon frequencies. Thus the phonon frequencies of vitrous silica have been calculated assuming the electronic bulk modulus,K_e, as equal to zero. New equations have been derived to relate the pressure derivatives of second order elastic constants to the acoustic Gruneisen’s parameters using both Bhatia-Singh’s parameters and Schofield’s equations. The calculated longitudinal and transverse Gruneisen’s parameters and the predicted absorption band spectra from Nagendranath’s equation and Bhatia Singh’s parameters are in good agreement with experiment. The calculated mean acoustic mode Gruneisen’s parameter evaluated from the pressure derivative of Nagendranath’s equation is also in good agreement with experiment.

Litov and Anderson after various considerations suggested a four constant potential function for a-Se as well as a-As₂S₃. Hence we also used a four constant potential function with the sole purpose of applying this potential function to obtain several acoustic, thermodynamic and other properties. We calculated several acoustic properties of a-Se like second order elastic constants (SOECs), their pressure derivatives, the longitudinal and transverse Grüneisen constant by two different methods, phonon frequencies, absorption band position through the use of Nath-Smith-Delaunay’s equation, and the thermodynamic properties like heat capacity, bulk modulus, thermal Grüneisen constant, the pressure derivative of the bulk modulus (dK_T/dP=C₁), the pressure derivative ofC₁ which is related to Anderson-Grüneisen parameter, pressure derivative of Grüneisen constant namelyγ′_g which is related to second Grüneisen constant, characteristics of phonon frequencies, potential energy function through the use of fitted parameters and third order elastic constants. Finally we calculatedK_T at the reduced density ofρ/ρ₀=1.1.K_T is obtained from the potential function with the fitted parameters. In all the above cases the calculated values are found to be in good agreement with experiment wherever available. In this connection it is important to point out that we eliminated ‘C’ a constant in the potential function using the equilibrium condition as was done by Litovet al in a-Se and Gerlichet al in the case of a-As₂S₃ as all amorphous substances are isotropic as mentioned by several authors. We contemplate to calculate several other properties for a-Se and a-As₂S₃ and present them at a later stage.