Numerical simulation of transversely impacted, clamped circular aluminium plates

Abstract

This paper presents experimental and numerical results of a series of drop weight impact tests examining the dynamic response of fully clamped aluminium 5083/H111 circular plates struck laterally at the centre by a mass with a spherical indenter. The impact velocity varied from 1.0 to 6.0 m/s. The plates showed no visible damage at the very low incident energies but suffered both indentation and global deformation as incident energy was increased. The numerical modelling was performed using the LS-DYNA non-linear, dynamic finite element software. Both shell and solid element models of progressively refined mesh sizes were used and the results compared with the experimental data. The numerical calculations used can accurately predict the response of deflections, forces and absorbed energies, even for the models with coarse meshes. However, finer meshes and solid elements were required to obtain a satisfactorily accurate prediction of the deformed shape.