Computational and experimental analysis of the impact of a sphere on a beam and the resulting modal energy distribution

TL;DR

This study investigates how an elastic sphere impact affects the energy distribution across a beam's modes, comparing experimental results with advanced computational models to improve efficiency and accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a reduced-order computational approach with a massless contact boundary that significantly decreases modeling effort while maintaining accuracy.

Findings

The reduced-order model reduces computational effort by 3-4 orders of magnitude.

Experimental measurements are in excellent agreement with both computational approaches.

The impact induces specific modal energy distributions useful for impact vibration absorber design.

Abstract

We consider the common problem setting of an elastic sphere impacting on a flexible beam. In contrast to previous studies, we analyze the modal energy distribution induced by the impact, having in mind the particular application of impact vibration absorbers. Also, the beam is analyzed in the clamped-clamped configuration, in addition to the free-free configuration usually considered. We demonstrate that the designed test rig permits to obtain well-repeatable measurements. The measurements are confronted with predictions obtained using two different approaches, state-of-the-art Finite Element Analysis and a recently developed computational approach involving a reduced-order model. The innovative aspect of the latter approach is to achieve a massless contact boundary using component mode synthesis, which reduces the mathematical model order and numerical oscillations. We show that the novel computational approach reduces the numerical effort by 3-4 orders of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art Finite Element Analysis, without compromising the excellent agreement with the measurements.