A mechanical experimental setup to simulate vocal folds vibrations. Preliminary results

TL;DR

This paper presents a new experimental setup with a deformable vocal fold replica to study oscillation parameters, enabling validation of theoretical phonation models through controlled experiments.

Contribution

A novel experimental setup using a deformable vocal fold replica to simulate and analyze vocal fold vibrations under controlled conditions.

Findings

Replica produces self-sustained oscillations.

Oscillation frequency and pressure thresholds can be quantitatively studied.

Data can test theoretical phonation models.

Abstract

This paper contributes to the understanding of vocal folds oscillation during phonation. In order to test theoretical models of phonation, a new experimental set-up using a deformable vocal folds replica is presented. The replica is shown to be able to produce self sustained oscillations under controlled experimental conditions. Therefore different parameters, such as those related to elasticity, to acoustical coupling or to the subglottal pressure can be quantitatively studied. In this work we focused on the oscillation fundamental frequency and the upstream pressure in order to start (on-set threshold) either end (off-set threshold) oscillations in presence of a downstream acoustical resonator. As an example, it is shown how this data can be used in order to test the theoretical predictions of a simple one-mass model.