An aeroacoustic approach to phonation

A fluid mechanical, or aeroacoustic, point of view is followed to study possible sources of sound during phonation. Concentration is on two features of the vocal tract during phonation: abrupt area change from the glottis to the vocal tract and the finite length of the vocal tract. With these features, a source of sound distinct from the volume velocity source can be identified and a preliminary account of its effect on the acoustic field given. This source of sound is an oscillating force resulting from an interaction of rotational fluid motion with itself. Because of the schematic nature of the geometry of the model used here, this source may be considerably modified in actual phonation. It is concluded that specification of volume velocity is not enough to specify the source during phonation, even neglecting source-tract interaction.