Craig, Arto has given you a number I can't quarrel with for the carbon fibers for mass, but tensile strength is another matter (and for those who have corrected me for using that term, it may be inexact as one is dealing with stress, but it is a usable term).
The mass is a cubic measure (as Arto gave it), after all there can be no mass in a pure plane any more than there is length in a point or width in a line. In our three dimensional world one needs all three dimensions to make up mass (I won't speak for the "Flatlanders", nor for extradimensional beings - just for our particular space). But the strength, in the sense of breaking stress, is a square measure. Within limits the length makes no difference, only the stress resistance of the material (in bridge cables one has to add the weight of the cable itself to the load it bears, and other such confusions - and with strings one has to consider the imperfections that multiply the longer the string). Tensile strength is of interest to lutenists (and other string players) because of the question of "breaking pitch", which tends to be the same no matter the gauge of the string for a given length. The string of greater mass needs a higher tension (stress) to reach a pitch, but it also has greater strength due to the thicker cross section. It is not intuitive that the "breaking pitch" should always be the same for a given material - the relationships might not be linear - but it seems they are. Experimentation seems to have shown that. I hope to soon be able to have some empirical data on the topic, but the strings I've got tensile strength figures for seem to react as predicted for breaking pitch when put to the test. But it is only important on a lute as to the chaterelle, and the highest pitch one wants to attain (and for many coursed lutes whether the bass courses can make a musical sound without the extension of the VL, as in the arch lutes and theorbos). Best, Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Robert Pierpont" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lute List" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 6:27 PM Subject: Carbon fiber strings > Does anybody have the mass and tensile strength values for carbon fiber strings. (Saverez strings claim not to be carbon fiber so those numbers won't necessarily work.) > Thanks, > Craig > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > -- > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > >
