Transient wave response of the violin body
Nils-Erik Molin, Anders O. Wåhlin, Erik V. Jansson · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1990
In this investigation, the dispersive, transient wave propagation field of a complete violin excited by a mechanically induced impulse at the top of the bridge is presented. By means of double pulsed holographic interferometry with a ruby laser as light source the propagating wave field is recorded. From presented interferograms, it is seen that initially the top plate acts mainly as a nonsymmetric dipole with centers at the two bridge feet. The back plate is strongly coupled to the motion of the top plate by the sound post and acts more like a monopole. Thus the position of the sound post is crucial to the performance of the instrument. The free edges at the f-holes are very early reached by the dispersive bending waves of high amplitude probably giving a significant contribution to the sound of the violin family instruments.