Impacts between multibody systems and deformable structures

TL;DR

This paper examines the modeling of impacts in multibody systems with deformable structures, comparing rigid-body and soft contact methods, and discusses the parameters influencing unilateral spring contacts.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of impact modeling approaches and discusses the influence of unilateral spring parameters in systems with multiple contacts.

Findings

Rigid-body and soft contact methods are evaluated through numerical examples.

Parameters of unilateral springs significantly affect impact responses.

Accurate impact modeling remains challenging due to lack of universal constitutive laws.

Abstract

Collisions and impacts are the principal reasons for impulsive motions, which we frequently see in dynamic responses of systems. Precise modelling of impacts is a challenging problem due to the lack of the accurate and commonly accepted constitutive law that governs their mechanics. Rigid-body approach and soft contact methods are discussed in this paper and examined in the presented numerical examples. The main focus is set to impacts in systems with multiple unilateral contacts and collisions with elastic elements of the reference. Parameters of interconnecting unilateral springs are under discussion.