Musical Instruments

This page is under construction but for those of you who could not wait, here are two research topics on the piano and the clarinet with corresponding publications.

• Finite element modeling of a piano soundboard and sensitivity analysis (Mokdad and Missoum, 2013). This work in progress introduces the first fully parametrized finite element of a piano soundboard that also includes the effect of downbearing and crowning.
• Explicit Mapping of acoustic regimes for wind instruments (Vergez and Missoum, 2013). This research proposes a new approach to investigate the relationship between control and design parameters of wind instruments in general in order to produce a sound through self-sustained oscillations and to obtain a given intonation. A preliminary study has been performed on a simplified clarinet model. This work is the product of a collaboration with Christophe Vergez of the Mechanics and Acoustics Laboratory (LMA) of the CNRS in Marseille, France.

Figure 1: Fully parameterized model of a soundboard.

Figure 2: Simplified model of clarinet.

References:

Mokdad, F., and Missoum, S., “A Fully Parametrized Finite Element Model of a Grand Piano Soundboard for Sensitivity Analysis of the Dynamic Behavior”, Proceedings of the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Portland, OR: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2013.

Missoum, S., and Christophe, V., “Explicit Maps of Acoustic Regimes of a Wind Instrument”, Proceedings of the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Portland, OR: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2013.