Many people applaud the timbre of antique violins, such as Stradivari, however the debate over whether such timbre is good or bad is still empirical and subjective. It is said that the sound quality of violin comes from its structure and craftsmanship, wood properties, etc. Vibration analysis of violins has been advanced by numerical simulation in recent years [1-3], however, violin consists of many parts and its complex structure makes the analysis of sound difficult.

In this study, eigenvalue analysis using the Finite Element Method (FEM) is conducted by ADVENTURECluster which is a software of parallel large-scale simulation. First, CAD data was made by scanning the Stradivari 1719 violin using a micro-CT scanner, next, the finite element mesh including not only mainly body parts such as frontboard, backboard and sideboard but also small parts such as scroll and peg was generated, and then, a detailed analysis was performed using a large-scale mesh with over one million degrees of freedom. Moreover, since violin is mainly made of wood such as maple, spruce and ebony, which have orthotropic properties [4], it was analyzed with physical characteristics in three orthogonal directions, the longitudinal grain direction, radial annual ring direction and direction tangential to the annual ring. Some significant violin's vibration modes, e.g., A0 called the Helmholtz resonance or breath mode, were evaluated.

In the future, we plan to add more detailed parts, generate a mesh for the air region around the violin, and perform coupled simulation of the vibration and sound radiation of Stradivari’s violins.