Nonlinear modeling of piano hammer-string interaction
Donald E. Hall · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1989
Measurements of compliance on real piano hammers show that they are not well represented by Hooke's law, and it has been found that theoretical models with linear compliance have only modest success in accounting for measured string vibration spectra. Two new computer programs now perform numerical integrations of the interaction process for hammers with nonlinear compliance. One treats the string as a pair of digital delay lines, and is limited to perfectly flexible strings. The other represents the string by its normal modes, and can include string stiffness. Results from these two programs agree well with each other, and provide improved agreement with laboratory measurements.