Plastic instead of brass: Rosenheim student Anna-Lena Rotter completed her mechanical engineering degree with an extraordinary project. For her bachelor thesis, the 24-year-old amateur musician built a trombone made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics, as the Technical University (TH) Rosenheim announced on Monday. Your 3-D printer took two months to complete the project. At just under 500 grams, the instrument weighs a quarter of the weight of a sheet metal trombone. It can also be individually designed: Different colors or logos are no problem, says Rotter. In terms of price, too, the carbon trombone is clearly superior to brass instruments and is “significantly cheaper”.
The project started when Rotter observed her friend building a model. “I thought you could try using this technique to build a musical instrument instead of an airplane fuselage,” she says. The student actually plays the euphonium, the tuba’s “little brother”. But that was too complicated to build in the short time. So it became the trumpet that Rotter also dominated.
First, she measured the elements of the trumpet and created a virtual model. She examined the air flow and made calculations on the selection of materials. Then it came to 3-D printing. “I have a printer at home and it was very busy for over two months,” she says. This is how the molds for manufacturing the individual hollow bodies were created.
Six months after the start of the project, she held the finished carbon trombone in her hand. The first tone was weird, but she quickly got used to the different responsiveness. “Compared to a brass instrument, the sound is audibly darker,” says the student. The music professionals are also impressed. The Rosenheim music teacher Wolfgang Gahabka says: “The sound is soft and dark, so very pleasant.” The low weight is particularly interesting for younger students, as is the robustness.
Rotters professor, engineer Martin Reuter, is also proud. The work stands out because it combines various subjects from a technical degree with a completely different subject, instrument making. For the future, it is quite conceivable to develop a business model with the individual manufacture of various wind instruments from this.