Design of FRP Material Substitutes for Musical Instrument

In a designing of musical instrument substitutes, the specific dynamic modulus and logarithmic decrement are very important parameters. In the previous paper, we proposed musical instrument substitutes constructed by unidirectional composite material, EVA foam and Balsa ; however these experimental approaches require long periods of time and are considerably expensive in the practical designing phase. In this paper, we propose the new numerical model considered of heterogeneity in composite laminates. The conventional homogeneous modeling method cannot be applied to the prediction of the above two properties, because the specific dynamic modulus and logarithmic decrement depend on the reinforcement fiber and matrix properties, respectively. The modeling method of the heterogeneity for the composite materials is a key factor. In the proposed model, the composite materials are defined as a stacking structure with fiber plate and matrix plate. Using the proposed model, the above properties are obtained from the eigenvibration and transient analyses. After checking the validity of the proposed modeling method, two types of musical instrument substitutes are designed using numerical analyses.