Chladni patterns

[Ron Nossaman]

> What can you tell us about this particular video?? Who did it, what the 
> materials used were, etc. 

I don't have any idea what the details are. I just stumbled 
across it on the way through to somewhere else and thought is 
was neat.


>It might be very interesting to look at the 
> relationship(s) between the frequencies involved at the moment(s) of 
> change of pattern. Perhaps if we had enough data, from enough different 
> and carefully measured and monitored soundboards, it would really be 
> possible to begin to predict what will happen with given parameters of 
> stiffness, thickness, etc.
> 
> Ya think??
> 
> Robin Blankenship

This has been tried plenty of times, usually with an unstrung 
unloaded board, which alone would render the data useless. 
It's also been done, albeit rarely, with strung and 
realistically loaded boards, though nothing practical or 
predictive seems to have come of it. At least, no dynamite 
soundboard that I'm aware of has appeared in production as a 
result of this sort of testing.

I'm told that part of the problem with analyzing soundboard 
response like this is that driving the board at some random 
spot at a given frequency will yield different results than 
driving the board from a struck string at it's precise 
position on the soundboard, which makes sense to me, and I'm 
not sure a struck string can generate enough soundboard 
movement to form the patterns (which will be hiding under the 
plate anyway). Bottom line - I haven't had any direct 
experience with it, and don't really know.
Ron N