The Uintah fluid-structure interaction component, known as MPMICE, is currently being employed in a study of phonation, or the production of sound, in human vocal folds. This investigation has begun by determining the ability of Uintah to capture normal acoustical dynamics, including movement of the vocal fold tissue, and will consider pathological laryngeal conditions in the future. Uintah provides several important capabilities to this study. In addition to the ability to treat large deformation fluid-solid interaction, there are also material models for biological tissue available, as well as tools to convert two and three dimensional image data (microscopic, CT, etc), the usual means of describing geometry in biological applications, to a geometric description suitable for use in Uintah's mechanics code, the quasi-meshless Material Point Method (MPM). Lastly, the use of a compressible flow solver for the fluid enables measurement of ''sounds'' by recording the computed pressure.
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