Home▸Chemistry & Materials▸The FHP Lattice Gas Automaton

⬡ The FHP Lattice Gas Automaton

Interactive 3D hexagonal lattice of particles colliding and streaming under simple rules, with adjustable particle density and obstacle placement to watch emergent fluid-like flow patterns form.

Chemistry & Materials3DModerate60 FPS

A hexagonal lattice of particles streams and collides under a handful of local rules, and out of that simple bookkeeping a recognisable fluid flow — including a wake behind an obstacle — emerges.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Particles hop between triangular-lattice sites along six directions and redirect on collision while conserving particle number and momentum exactly, showing how continuum-like fluid behaviour emerges from discrete microscopic rules.

🎮 How to Use

Set the inflow density and bias to drive flow from the left, adjust the obstacle size to see a wake form behind it, and change simulation speed to watch the lattice evolve tick by tick.

💡 Did You Know?

The FHP model, published in 1986, was one of the first cellular automata shown to reproduce genuine fluid dynamics — including something close to the von Kármán vortex street — from purely local, reversible-in-spirit rules.

⚙ Under the hood

Interactive 3D hexagonal lattice of particles colliding and streaming under simple rules, with adjustable particle density and obstacle placement to watch emergent fluid-like flow patterns form.

lattice-gas-automatonfhp-modelcellular-automatafluid-simulationstatistical-physicschemistry

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install