Summary of Lumped Modeling

In this chapter, we looked at the fundamentals of lumped modeling elements such as masses, springs, and dashpots. The important concept of driving-point impedance was defined and discussed, and electrical equivalent circuits were developed, along with associated elementary (circuit) network theory. Finally, we looked at basic ways of digitizing lumped elements and more complex ODEs and PDEs, including a first glance at some nonlinear methods.

Practical examples of lumped models begin in §9.3.1. In particular, piano-like models require a ``hammer'' to strike the string, and §9.3.1 explicates the simplest case of an ideal point-mass striking an ideal vibrating string. In that model, when the mass is in contact with the string, it creates a scattering junction on the string having reflection and transmission coefficients that are first-order filters. These filters are then digitized via the bilinear transform. The ideal string itself is of course modeled as a digital waveguide. A detailed development of wave scattering at impedance-discontinuities is presented for digital waveguide models in §C.8, and for wave digital filters in Appendix F.

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About the Author: Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.