NSF Award
2306035
Sound generation in wind instruments such as the recorder, flute, trumpet, and clarinet involves the motion of a compressible fluid (air). This motion can be extremely complicated, and can lead to vortex formation and various nonlinear phenomena found in strongly driven fluids. Dr. Giordano will use advanced computational methods to study the fluid dynamics of air inside and around a variety of wind instruments. This fluid motion is directly responsible for sound generation, so the results of this study will lead to a better understanding of the musical tones produced by wind instruments. An integral component of this project will be the comparison of the computational results with experiments performed with real instruments, to test and validate the computational findings. The students who engage in this work will acquire computational skills that can be applied to a variety of other problems in science and engineering. Indeed, modeling the sound produced by a wind instrument involves the same equations and the same computational issues that are encountered in studies of the sound produced by a jet turbine, the motion of a flapping wing, human phonation, and other important aerodynamics problems, so students involved in this project will be well versed in the advanced computational modeling and experimental methods needed to tackle a wide range of problems in science and engineering. <br/><br/>A first principles description of the fluid dynamics of a wind instrument requires the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations, a set of nonlinear partial differential equations. The complexity of the Navier-Stokes equations is such that their application to realistic musical instruments demands a computational solution, which is now feasible with available high performance parallel computers. This project will obtain solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations for a variety of wind instruments using state-of-the-art computational resources and custom designed algorithms for multicore computer architectures. These computational studies will be complemented with experimental measurements designed to test specific qualitative and quantitative predictions of the modeling results, leading to new insights into these instruments. The PI will also develop instructional modules on acoustics and musical instruments for K-12 teachers and students who participate in outreach programs at Auburn University.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
