Since the mid-17<sup>th</sup> century, luthiers have been crafting and evaluating the quality of violins. In order to do so, luthiers often tap on the wood and use their hearing and sense of touch to feel vibrations. This evaluation is based solely on the luthier and their experience level. Attempts to find a quantitative way to evaluate violins have been conducted by Carleen Hutchins. Typically, these evaluations are performed using hologram interferometry, unfortunately this method is rather expensive. An accurate and low cost quantitative method to analyze violins using vibrations would be invaluable. Two dimensional vibrational analysis is a viable method to achieve these goals. By covering the frequency range from 0 to 5000 Hz, the violin can be analyzed using a low cost accelerometer to identify frequencies with which the wood resonates and has the highest amplitude. At each resonant frequency, the harmonics can also be analyzed. Due to the nature of the methods employed, the vibrational characteristics of the violin can be studied during every step of construction. The results from tests run using the methods described above will be discussed.

Method development for analyzing vibrational modes of violins throughout construction process

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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