Bells come in all sizes from little jingly things on christmas cracker ribbins, right up to Chinese temple bells weighing many hundreds of tons.
As far as I can see little bells just tinckle, because they are too wee. There's not much that we can do about that for now. Middle sized bells make pleasing "ding" or "dong" sounds depending on their size, and are just right. But once bells get over a few tons weight they tend to make rather mushy booming sounds rather than very deep loud notes.
I think the problem with truly ginormous bells is that they are made of metal. This leads to two problem areas: 1. it is difficult to make a clean casting of many tons, and 2. The metal has the same physical properties - elasticity, stiffness, denisty, etc. as in a small bell of the same shape.
Suggested, therefore, is to scale the physical properties as well as the linear dimensions. I propose an utterly monstrous bell be made from something softer or with slower natural vibrations. Rubber perhaps.-- pocmloc, Jun 10 2020 Thought this reminded me of something. https://worleygig.com/tag/bells/ [doctorremulac3, Jun 10 2020] Speed of sound in rubber https://www.nde-ed....peedinmaterials.htm60 meters per second [Voice, Jun 11 2020] OK so the Grassmayr Glocke has a rather good sound, better than most enormous bells I have heard. But I'm still thinking it has a different kind of sound from smaller bells. The proportion of lower and higher harmonics is different, it has more high cymbal type sounds in it proportionally.
That's why I'm thinking of material shifts to get a non-linear change in the sound.
Think of organ pipes, the scaling of the width etc. changes from low notes to high notes to give a more balanced change in tone across the range.
Actually that gives me an idea, use different densities of gas for different pitched organ pipes. Maybe have a vessel containing different densities of gas, and lay the pipes horizontally so each pipe is in a slightly different density layer.-- pocmloc, Jun 11 2020 Mightn't the ginormous bell be fabricated of a continuous strip of metal instead of a casting? Imagine peeling a potato in a single continuous strip and then rewinding the peel into a bell shape. The final size would be limited by the strip length. Striking the finished "bell" near the midline, the sound would radiate towards the ends, those being at the top and bottom. — whatrock, Jun 11 2020-- pocmloc, Jun 11 2020 Sorry for the accidental deletion.
What's the speed of sound in potato peel?-- pocmloc, Jun 11 2020 Well of course a recording won't capture the sound of the instrument, it's like a pipe organ, the bell physically shifts a significant amount of air in a way that a loudspeaker cone simply can't.
The Eastern bells sound very poor to a Western ear because they produce a completely different spectral envelope - the Grassmayr Glocke clearly has been extremely well designed and made, a superb casting and a very good profile to generate a very well organised set of partials.
You are right, internal damping is going to be important... also other properties such as young's modulus I imagine. I'm sure there's a reason why all of the successful bells basically follow the established craft tradition rather than being designed on a crazy ideas website by people who haven't a clue what they are talking about.-- pocmloc, Jun 11 2020 // people who haven't a clue what they are talking about //
On that note, I suggest a 3D printed bell, say 40 feet tall and 50 feet wide, made in sections, carefully joined together and painted some cheerful brassy shade. Within this monstrosity, hidden from view would be a device capable of sounding exactly like what everyone would expect.
I suggest using a bell.-- whatrock, Jun 11 2020 What scale does vibration get interupted? Electrical discharge machining (EDM) could make sections for an exceptional block construction bell. Size as big as your imagination if the resonance can travel through the appropriately shaped joins.-- wjt, Jun 14 2020 random, halfbakery