A computational study of the effect of intraglottal vortex-induced negative pressure on vocal fold vibration.

Recent studies reported the formation of intraglottal vortices for medium and high subglottal pressures in excised-larynx experiments, and hypothesized that the suction force created by these vortices might affect vocal fold vibration. However, high subglottal pressures often lead to large vocal fold elastic recoil forces, and it is unclear if the vortex-induced suction force is large enough compared with the elastic recoil force to have noticeable effects on vocal fold vibration. In this study, the validity of this hypothesis was examined using a computational model. The results suggest that intraglottal vortices might only have small effects on vocal fold vibration.