Numerical Chladni figures

Abstract

Chladni patterns of vibrating membranes or thin plates faszinated the people already in the eighteenth century. As a simple way to visualize acoustic phenomena it is a valuable experiment for beginners' courses. In this paper I present NumChladni, an interactive tool for studying arbitrary two-dimensional vibrating membranes based on the Finite Element method. I also describe the straightforward approach of the underlying mathematical details and give some examples. NumChladni is directly applicable in the undergraduate classroom as, for example, complementary application to experimental setups.