Effects of frequency, temperature and test duration in the viscoelasticity of Brazilian hardwoods used in handmade musical instruments

Abstract

This study aims to make a comprehensive analysis on the viscoelastic behavior of typical tropical hardwoods and its influences in making musical instruments. For that a Dynamic-Mechanical Analysis was done and the mechanical parameters dependence on test control parameters like temperature, frequency and test duration time were measured. For Dalbergia Nigra the final value of Module of Elasticity (MOE) was 17551.0MPa and 0.022020 for tangent delta (tg(δ)), but a great variation in those parameters was observed during the tests, for all species the MOE increases and tg(δ) decreases, even with constant temperatures, which may be caused by water loss. Besides that, a discussion was made relating the obtained data and historical knowledge about the usages of the studied woods for musical instruments manufacture, and density was shown as the main variable for that purpose.