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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Diaz, Rodrigo, Sandler, Mark
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.05940
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author Diaz, Rodrigo
Sandler, Mark
author_facet Diaz, Rodrigo
Sandler, Mark
contents Modal methods for simulating vibrations of strings, membranes, and plates are widely used in acoustics and physically informed audio synthesis. However, traditional implementations, particularly for non-linear models like the von Kármán plate, are computationally demanding and lack differentiability, limiting inverse modelling and real-time applications. We introduce a fast, differentiable, GPU-accelerated modal framework built with the JAX library, providing efficient simulations and enabling gradient-based inverse modelling. Benchmarks show that our approach significantly outperforms CPU and GPU-based implementations, particularly for simulations with many modes. Inverse modelling experiments demonstrate that our approach can recover physical parameters, including tension, stiffness, and geometry, from both synthetic and experimental data. Although fitting physical parameters is more sensitive to initialisation compared to other methods, it provides greater interpretability and more compact parameterisation. The code is released as open source to support future research and applications in differentiable physical modelling and sound synthesis.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_05940
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fast Differentiable Modal Simulation of Non-linear Strings, Membranes, and Plates
Diaz, Rodrigo
Sandler, Mark
Sound
Machine Learning
Audio and Speech Processing
Computational Physics
Modal methods for simulating vibrations of strings, membranes, and plates are widely used in acoustics and physically informed audio synthesis. However, traditional implementations, particularly for non-linear models like the von Kármán plate, are computationally demanding and lack differentiability, limiting inverse modelling and real-time applications. We introduce a fast, differentiable, GPU-accelerated modal framework built with the JAX library, providing efficient simulations and enabling gradient-based inverse modelling. Benchmarks show that our approach significantly outperforms CPU and GPU-based implementations, particularly for simulations with many modes. Inverse modelling experiments demonstrate that our approach can recover physical parameters, including tension, stiffness, and geometry, from both synthetic and experimental data. Although fitting physical parameters is more sensitive to initialisation compared to other methods, it provides greater interpretability and more compact parameterisation. The code is released as open source to support future research and applications in differentiable physical modelling and sound synthesis.
title Fast Differentiable Modal Simulation of Non-linear Strings, Membranes, and Plates
topic Sound
Machine Learning
Audio and Speech Processing
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.05940