Elastic body impact on sandwich panels at low and intermediate velocity. (February 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kralovec, Christoph; Schagerl, Martin; Schröder, Kai-Uwe
• Is Part Of: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Volume 229:Number 2(2015:Feb.)
• Page Start: 221
• Page End: 231
• Publication Date: 2015-02
• Subjects: Impact -- low velocity impact -- intermediate velocity impact -- quasi-static response -- quasi-static impact -- intermediate mass impact -- human safety -- human impact -- soft impact -- elastic body -- impact on sandwich panel -- sandwich failure; Aeronautics -- Periodicals; Astronautics -- Periodicals; Airplanes -- Design and construction -- Periodicals; Aerospace industries -- Periodicals; 629.1
• DOI: 10.1177/0954410014529422
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0954-4100

Abstract

This paper investigates the dynamics and failure modes during the impact of an elastic body on a sandwich structure by means of non-linear finite element analysis. The main motivation for the study is the accidental impact of a human body on the interior sandwich structure of a civil aircraft during a crash situation. The considered model is a rectangular simply supported sandwich plate that is loaded dynamically by the centric impact of a spherical body with varying stiffness. In principle, the impactor stiffness has a significant influence on the contact forces between impactor and sandwich structure, and consequently, leads to a change in the impactor deceleration and re-acceleration as well as a change in the contact duration. However, the deformation of a "softer" impactor causes a smoother load introduction. Thus, two questions arise: can the altered stress distribution change the initial failure mode of the sandwich structure? And how are the deformations and deceleration and accelerations of the elastic impactor influenced? As, particularly, the latter question is crucial to human safety in crash situations, the inertia loads exerted on the elastic impactor are evaluated in detail by standard injury criteria.