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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Signal Process.

Sec. Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing

Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsip.2025.1525044

This article is part of the Research Topic Sound Synthesis through Physical Modeling View all 4 articles

Numerical modelling of elasto-plastic friction in bow-string interaction with guaranteed passivity

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • 2 Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In order to simulate the function of bowed-string instruments, one needs to model the frictional interaction between the bow hair and the vibrating string. This is possible using an elasto-plastic friction model, which has previously succeeded in reproducing experimental data captured on a monochord setup. In this work, this elasto-plastic model is refined to guarantee passivity, and a stable numerical scheme is derived that inherits the energy balance of the underlying continuous model. The presented approach considers a finite-width bow, thus spreading the bow-string interaction over an area. The compliance of the bow hair and the torsional motion of the string are also taken into account. A sound example and animations of the string motion are provided to demonstrate the behaviour of the model.

    Keywords: bowed mass, bow-string interaction, Friction, Passivity, Finite differences

    Received: 08 Nov 2024; Accepted: 11 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Matusiak, Chatziioannou and Van Walstijn. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ewa Matusiak, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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