Reconfigurable Elastic Metamaterials: Engineering Dispersion with Meccano$^{\text{TM}}$

TL;DR

This paper introduces a reconfigurable elastic metamaterial built from Meccano$^{\text{TM}}$, capable of supporting backwards waves and tunable dispersion properties, verified through simulation and experimental characterization.

Contribution

It presents a novel reconfigurable elastic metamaterial design using Meccano$^{\text{TM}}$, demonstrating control over wave dispersion and backward wave support.

Findings

Supports backwards waves with opposite phase and group velocities

Experimental verification of three distinct configurations

Acoustic inference of spatial vibration spectra

Abstract

We design, simulate and experimentally characterise a reconfigurable elastic metamaterial with beyond-nearest-neighbour (BNN) coupling. The structure is composed from the popular British model construction system, Meccano$^{\text{TM}}$. The Meccano$^{\text{TM}}$ metamaterial supports backwards waves with opposite directions of phase and group velocities. We experimentally verify three distinct configurations and acoustically infer their spatial vibration spectra.