🧪 Materials Science Metamaterials Simulation
Interactive mass-in-mass metamaterial chain: drive a 1D lattice of resonant unit cells at a chosen frequency and watch waves either propagate freely or die out inside a locally-resonant vibration band gap, with live effective-mass and transmission readouts.
Metamaterials get their unusual wave-manipulating properties not from an exotic base substance but from engineered internal structure repeated cell after cell. This simulation builds the simplest such structure that is still physically real: a one-dimensional "mass-in-mass" chain, where every host mass hides a small spring-mounted resonator inside it. Drive one end of the chain at a chosen frequency and watch the disturbance travel — or fail to travel — down the lattice. Near the resonator's own natural frequency the unit cell's effective mass goes negative, opening a genuine vibration band gap in which waves cannot propagate at all and are instead absorbed within a few unit cells, exactly the mechanism used in real acoustic and seismic metamaterial shielding.
This simulation introduces the concept of metamaterials – artificially engineered materials with properties not found in nature. It demonstrates how these materials can manipulate waves and light.
2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install