The physics and sound design of flue organ pipes

Abstract

Sound design methods for flue organ pipes can be developed for the practical application in organ building due to the high performance of modern computers and the advanced level of the scientific research on flue organ pipe acoustics. The research of Neville Fletcher and the team around him has contributed in a high extent to the scientific understanding of the behaviour of flue organ pipes. By extending this knowledge sound design methods and dimensioning software for different special flue organ pipes have been developed in the frames of European research projects. As examples the following topics will be mentioned: -the development of optimal scaling and a software for designing the depth and width of wooden organ pipes without changing the sound character; -the development of optimal scaling, design and software of chimney flutes by means of appropriate laboratory experiments and computer simulations.