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Published on: August 1, 2014
Vibro-acoustics of organ pipes--revisiting the Miller experiment (L)
1Laboratoire d'Acoustique de l'Université du Maine, UMR CNRS 6613 Avenue O. Messiaen, 72085 Le Mans Cedex 9, France. gautier@univ-lemans.fr
Abstract:
A century ago, Science published a spectacular experimental study on the physics of organ pipes. Dayton C. Miller observed experimentally that the sound produced by an organ pipe can depend on the vibration of its walls, in addition to its internal geometry and the interaction between the air jet and the labium. The Miller experiment has been repeated and an interpretation is now proposed in terms of vibroacoustic coupling mechanisms between walls and internal fluid, which can lead to "pathological" behavior.
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