2013 Award Winners
Award-winning project: Traditional organ building meets modern science
Project partners: Fraunhofer-Institut für Bauphysik IBP | Werkstätte für Orgelbau Mühleisen GmbH | Steinbeis-Transferzentrum Angewandte Akustik | Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum, Karlsruhe
Sound – architecture – technology: the organ, with all its facets, lies at the intersection of these concepts. As one of the world’s most versatile musical instruments, the organ represents the meeting point of traditional craftsmanship and science. Organ research is taking on the challenge of combining this craftsmanship in the high-end market with cutting-edge science and new technologies. In eight European research projects coordinated by the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum (SEZ), the partners – Werkstätte für Orgelbau Mühleisen GmbH, the Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Applied Acoustics, the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP) and SEZ – have collaborated successfully. The aim was to improve the design and optimise the dimensions of the traditional wind system – the part of the organ that has a lasting influence on its sound.
Organ building is not mass production; every organ is a one-off with a unique sound and should be specifically optimised for the room in which it will eventually be installed. Scientific methods of acoustic research help to design the organ in such a way that its sound is optimally tailored to the room acoustics and thus comes into its own.
In addition to optimising the existing wind system, the project partners aimed to develop new wind systems that ensure trouble-free operation of the organ, either through an improved mechanical regulating mechanism or an electronic control system. In the Fraunhofer IBP laboratory, in collaboration with the Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Applied Acoustics, the key elements of a wind system were individually examined for their fluid dynamics and acoustic properties. Thanks to the development of mechanically and electronically controlled outlet valves, organ builders can now better control the wind pressure behaviour. Software has been developed which enables both traditional and innovative wind systems to be optimally designed and, whilst simultaneously improving sound quality, also reduces production costs by 15 to 20 per cent. At the heart of the software is a physical model that describes the fluid dynamics within the wind system and the interaction between the individual components. The newly developed system is already being used successfully in practice by organ-building companies. Furthermore, the results from the research projects have been incorporated into the research organ housed at Fraunhofer IBP. Orgelbau Mühleisen, Fraunhofer and Steinbeis have created a transparent instrument here that serves scientific research purposes – the only one of its kind in the world. For this long-standing collaborative development project, they are being awarded the Steinbeis Foundation’s Transfer Prize – the Löhn Prize.