Acoustic tube models of the human vocal tract for the university classroom. (16th October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hirth, Michael; Urbassek, Herbert M; Müller, Andreas; Kuhn, Jochen
• Is Part Of: European journal of physics. Volume 41:Number 6(2020:Nov.)
• Publication Date: 2020-10-16
• Subjects: acoustic tube model -- 3D print -- vowels -- vocal tract; Physics -- Periodicals; Physics -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Europe -- Periodicals; 530
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6404/aba5c8
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0143-0807

Abstract

Abstract: Composite vessels of cylindrical tubes are often used to provide simple models of vowel formation in the human vocal tract. Already a two-tube model allows one to discuss vowel formation in the context of tube eigenmodes. In order to validate the two-tube model we use 3D printing to build a set of two single tubes and 26 two-tube composites representing different model realizations of the vocal tract. Good agreement between theory and experiment is obtained if the so-called acoustical end correction is taken into account. A better representation of human vowels requires an extension to more than two tubes; thus we took data for the construction from literature and investigate the spectra of five eight-tube models corresponding to the vowels [a:], [e:], [i:], [o:] and [u:]. The experimental work connected with the contextual applications in voice production aims to broaden the student's conceptual understanding of tube resonances depending on the geometry in a more general manner.