The self-sustained oscillation of a brass wind musical instrument involves a complex aerodynamic coupling between a multimode mechanical vibratory system (the lips of the player) and a multimode acoustical vibratory system (the air column of the instrument). In this thesis the behaviour of the coupled system near the threshold of oscillation is investigated using a simplified model in which a single mechanical lip mode is coupled to a single mode of the acoustical resonator by air flow through the lips. The theoretical threshold behaviour is compared with the measured threshold behaviour of a trombone sounded by an artificial lip reed mechanism. Comparability between theory and experiment is ensured by using model parameter values derived from mechanical response measurements on the artificial lips and input impedance measurements on the trombone. The mechanical response measurement can be used to classify mechanical models of the artificial lips unambiguously as either "inward striking" or "outward striking". Each of the embouchures considered is found to have at least one mechanical mode of each category. The experimentally observed threshold frequencies of the coupled system suggest a behaviour which passes smoothly from "inward striking" to "outward striking" character as the trombone slide is extended or the embouchure parameters changed. It seem unlikely that this type of behaviour can be explained using a lip model with only a single degree of freedom. After a discussion of the theory of laser Doppler anemometry (LDA), the technique is applied to the problem of measuring the instantaneous acoustic particle velocity within a standing wave pipe driven by a loudspeaker. The resulting Doppler signals display quasi-periodic amplitude modulation with a fundamental frequency equal to the frequency of the acoustic field. The phenomenon of amplitude modulation is investigated in some detail. Two different methods of analysing Doppler signals are compared: the digital Hilbert transform and the Disa analogue frequency tracker; the analogue tracker is found to offer the greater signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range. Experiments are carried out to establish how phase errors introduced by the analogue tracker can be minimised.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:648998 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Cullen, John Stuart |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/13512 |
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