This article presents a review of the fluid dynamics, flow-structure interactions, and acoustics associated with human phonation and speech. Our voice is produced through the process of phonation in the larynx, and an improved understanding of the underlying physics of this process is essential to advancing the treatment of voice disorders. Insights into the physics of phonation and speech can also contribute to improved vocal training and the development of new speech compression and synthesis schemes. This article introduces the key biomechanical features of the laryngeal physiology, reviews the basic principles of voice production, and summarizes the progress made over the past half-century in understanding the flow physics of phonation and speech. Laryngeal pathologies, which significantly enhance the complexity of phonatory dynamics, are discussed. After a thorough examination of the state of the art in computational modeling and experimental investigations of phonatory biomechanics, we present a synopsis of the pacing issues in this arena and an outlook for research in this fascinating subject. 437

Despite the frequent observation of a persistent opening in the posterior cartilaginous glottis in normal and pathological phonation, its influence on the self-sustained oscillations of the vocal folds is not well understood. The effects of a posterior gap on the vocal fold tissue dynamics and resulting acoustics were numerically investigated using a specially designed flow solver and a reduced-order model of human phonation. The inclusion of posterior gap areas of 0.03-0.1 cm 2 reduced the energy transfer from the fluid to the vocal folds by more than 42%-80% and the radiated sound pressure level by 6-14 dB, respectively. The model was used to simulate vocal hyperfucntion, i.e., patterns of vocal misuse/abuse associated with many of the most common voice disorders. In this first approximation, vocal hyperfunction was modeled by introducing a compensatory increase in lung air pressure to regain the vocal loudness level that was produced prior to introducing a large glottal gap. This resulted in a significant increase in maximum flow declination rate and amplitude of unsteady flow, thereby mimicking clinical studies. The amplitude of unsteady flow was found to be linearly correlated with collision forces, thus being an indicative measure of vocal hyperfunction.

Modeling provided potentially important insights into the pathophysiology of phonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction by demonstrating that compensatory mechanisms can counteract deterioration in the voice acoustic signal due to incomplete glottal closure, but this also leads to high vocal-fold collision forces (reflected in aerodynamic measures), which significantly increases the risk of developing phonotrauma.

A theoretical flow solution is presented for predicting the pressure distribution along the vocal fold walls arising from asymmetric flow that forms during the closing phases of speech. The resultant wall jet was analyzed using boundary layer methods in a non-inertial reference frame attached to the moving wall. A solution for the near-wall velocity profiles on the flow wall was developed based on a Falkner-Skan similarity solution and it was demonstrated that the pressure distribution along the flow wall is imposed by the velocity in the inviscid core of the wall jet. The method was validated with experimental velocity data from 7.5 times life-size vocal fold models, acquired for varying flow rates and glottal divergence angles. The solution for the asymmetric pressures was incorporated into a widely used two-mass model of vocal fold oscillation with a coupled acoustical model of sound propagation. Asymmetric pressure loading was found to facilitate glottal closure, which yielded only slightly higher values of maximum flow declination rate and radiated sound, and a small decrease in the slope of the spectral tilt. While the impact on symmetrically tensioned vocal folds was small, results indicate the effect becomes more significant for asymmetrically tensioned vocal folds.

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