The sound of friction: Real -time models, playability and musical applications

Friction, the tangential force between objects in contact, in most engineering applications needs to be removed as a source of noise and instabilities.;In musical applications, friction is a desirable component, being the sound production mechanism of different musical instruments such as bowed strings, musical saws, rubbed bowls and any other sonority produced by interactions between rubbed dry surfaces.;The goal of the dissertation is to simulate different instrument whose main excitation mechanism is friction. An efficient yet accurate model of a bowed string instrument, which combines the latest results in violin acoustics with the efficient digital waveguide approach, is provided. In particular, the bowed string physical model proposed uses a thermodynamic friction model in which the finite width of the bow is taken into account; this solution is compared to the recently developed elasto-plastic friction models used in haptics and robotics. Different solutions are also proposed to model the body of the instrument.;Other less common instruments driven by friction are also proposed, and the elasto-plastic model is used to provide audio-visual simulations of everyday friction sounds such as squeaking doors and rubbed wine glasses.;Finally, playability evaluations and musical applications in which the models have been used are discussed.