Non-Destructive Determination of the Elastic and Acoustic Properties of Resonant Wood Used in the Manufacture of Violins

Abstract

The aim of the paper was to determine the acoustic characteristics (speed of sound propagation in wood) and elastic (modulus of elasticity) on the three directions of wood, using non-destructive methods. The samples studied were cubic in shape from spruce and maple wood species, resonant and common. To determine the Young’s modulus and shear modules as well as the Poisson’s ratios, the expression of the propagation of Lamb waves generated and received using US translators with Hertzian contact with fr = 100kHz was used. The experimental data obtained show that mainly the velocities in radial and tangential direction are about one third of the longitudinal velocity, with the radial velocity higher than the tangential one. The radial velocity can be up to almost 14% higher than the tangential velocity. The applicability of this study consists in establishing the acoustic quality of the resonant wood from the Romanian area, used in the manufacture of our violins from the country.