Alternatives

[robert sadowski]

Dear List,
    Happy Easter to all.  Through my future wife I have struck up a
friendship with an engineer whose expertise is in the area of new
materials - carbon fibre, etc.  We had a long conversation about pianos,
soundboards and such.  He is fascinated by the choice of materials used in
piano construction and of course asked the question - why can't other
materials be used to replace spruce in soundboards.  He asked me to try and
locate sources of data concerning stresses, density, mass, and how
soundboards in general do what they do.  Any suggestions as to published
sources?

Thanks,

Bob Sadowski