title: The effect of glottal angle on intraglottal pressure.
abstract: Intraglottal pressure distributions depend upon glottal shape, size, and diameter. This study reports the effects of varying glottal angle on intraglottal and transglottal pressures using a three-dimensional Plexiglas model with a glottis having nine symmetric glottal angles and a constant minimal glottal diameter of 0.06 cm. The empirical data were supported by computational results using FLUENT. The results suggested that (1) the greater the convergent glottal angle, the greater outward driving forces (higher intraglottal pressures) on the vocal folds; (2) flow resistance was greatest for the uniform glottis, and least for the 10 degrees divergent glottis; (3) the greatest negative pressure in the glottis and therefore the greatest pressure recovery for diverging glottal shapes occurred for an angle of 10 degrees; (4) the smaller the convergent angle, the greater the flow resistance; (5) FLUENT was highly accurate in predicting the empirical pressures of this model; (6) flow separation locations (given by FLUENT) for the divergent glottis moved upstream for larger flows and larger glottal angles. The results suggest that phonatory efficiency related to aerodynamics may be enhanced with vocal fold oscillations that include large convergent angles during glottal opening and small (5 degrees - 10 degrees) divergent angles during glottal closing.
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, and Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Sheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Ronald C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Scherer
authors.forename: MingXi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.forename: SuPin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: HuiHui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D005931:Glottis / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D010699:Phonation / Q000502:physiology*; D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate; D011312:Pressure; D014827:Vocal Cords / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate