Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Phononic Band Structure In A Mass Chain, Samantha Parmley, Tom Zobrist, Terry Clough, Anthony Perez-Miller, Mark Makela, Roger Yu

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The vibrational properties of a finite one‐dimensional string‐mass chain are studied experimentally and theoretically. In the experiment both normal mode analysis and pulse analysis are used to obtain the eigenfrequencies of the string‐mass chain. The theoretical predictions are made based upon the numerical solution to the wave equation. The phononic band structure for a periodically massed string as well as Anderson localized gap modes for a disordered system are found. The theoretical and experimental results match satisfactorily well.