Authors: Arjan van der Plaats Harm K Schutte Frits J M van der Eerden Martin P de Vries Hans F Mahieu Gijsbertus J Verkerke
Publish Date: 2006/04/22
Volume: 34, Issue: 5, Pages: 893-900
Abstract
To improve the voice quality of laryngectomised patients a voiceproducing element has been developed Prior to in vivo testing we constructed and validated an invitro test setup consisting of a physical model of the subglottal tract and three physical models of the vocal tract for the vowels /a/ /i/ and /u/ to evaluate the voiceproducing element under physiologic acoustic conditions To meet acoustic conditions described in the literature we determined the appropriate dimensions of these physical models using a numerical model of the pressure perturbation in rigid tubes The numerical model showed that an acoustic equivalent of the subglottal tract could be obtained with a threetube system and an end impedance Vocal tract models could be constructed using two and fourresonator tubes The physical models were built and successfully validated according to the human acoustic properties The developed invitro setup can now be applied to test voiceproducing elements or vocal fold models under physiologic acoustic conditions
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