Characterization of the mechanical properties of the steelpan
April Bryan, Marc Gobin, Akill Griffith, Dillon Frederick, Brian R. Copeland, Clement Imbert · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2013
The steelpan is a struck idiophone whose playing surface is constructed by forming the top of a fifty-five gallon steel oil drum into a sunken, nearly hemispherical surface and then raising smaller shells on the hemisphere to form notes. The completed instrument resembles an inverted turtle shell and is played by striking the notes with sticks. Although it is understood that variations in note geometry and material properties are mainly responsible for the characteristic sounds generated when the notes are struck, few studies have investigated these relationships. Previous research efforts have explored the metallurgical properties and the characteristic vibrations of the notes. Less emphasis has been placed on the relationship between the mechanical properties of the steelpan and its acoustic behavior. In this research, the variation in the mechanical properties across the playing surface of a tenor steelpan is characterized. Of the instruments in the steelpan family, this instrument has the greatest deformation and the most notes. More specifically, the variation in the residual stress, strength, Young’s Modulus, and Poisson’s ratio are determined and compared among octave sets. This characterization is important for the development of models that relate the mechanical properties to the acoustical behavior of the steelpan.