LAUSR

The sound generation mechanisms of sibilant fricatives were investigated with experimental measurements and large-eddy simulations using a simplified vocal tract model. The vocal tract geometry was simplified to a three-dimensional rectangular channel, and differences in the geometries while pronouncing fricatives /s/ and /∫/ were expressed by shifting the position of the tongue and its constricted flow channel. Experimental results showed that the characteristic peak frequency of the fricatives decreased when the distance between the tongue and teeth increased. Numerical simulations revealed that the jet flow generated from the constriction impinged on the upper teeth wall and caused the main sound source upstream and downstream from the gap between the teeth. While magnitudes of the sound source decreased with increments of the frequency, amplitudes of the pressure downstream from the constriction increased at the peak frequencies of the corresponding tongue position. These results indicate that the sou...