This model represents an N-dimensional mechanical translational system. Each mass is connected to the two neighboring masses by two massless springs.
This system has a sparse DAE formulation, since each system equation refer to at most three nodes at a time; also the ODE formulation is sparse, because the acceleration of each mass only depends on its position and on that of its two neigbours.
The transient is initiated by perturbing the initial condition of the first point mass with respect to the rest equilibrium condition.