Numerical and experimental investigation of radial impacts on a half-circular plate

For investigations of impact problems, there are a lot of numerical simulations available, however, how well these simulation results correspond to the physical reality needs still further studies. The goal of this paper is to examine whether numerical results for impact responses using the finite element method and experimental results using advanced measurement instruments agree well with each other and how numerical results are influenced by some non-physical chosen simulation parameters in the numerical approach. For these purposes, the radial impact of a steel sphere colliding with a half-circular aluminum plate is used as an example and investigated both numerically and experimentally. In order to investigate the influence of different simulation parameters and the efficiency of different contact algorithms, the impact of a steel sphere colliding with an aluminium rod is first considered as a test case. Then, these results are used as guidelines for modeling the more complex radial impact. A comparison with experimental results shows for the centric and eccentric impact good agreement to the computed results if the simulation parameters are chosen appropriately.