On the contact law and structure responses of sandwich beam subject to low-velocity impact

The paper presented the contact law and structuralresponse of sandwich beam subject to low-velocity impact. Firstly, the upperface sheet of the sandwich beam is assumed as a beam supported on theelastic-plastic foundation. The quasi-static contact law is derived from theequilibrium equation of the beam associated with large deformation and axialtensile stiffness of the upper face sheet, and validated with the structureresponses of the sandwich beam fixed on the rigid plate subject tolow-velocity impact. Secondly, the structure responses of simply supportedsandwich beam with low-velocity impact are investigated by energy-balancemodel, discrete model and complete model to obtain the impact duration, thehistory of contact force and the transverse deflection. In addition, theeffects of the mass ratio and the initial velocity on the structuralresponses and the applicability of different models are investigated. Thetheoretical and numerical results demonstrate that the contact law proposedby present paper is efficient. All the models in the paper can be used toacquire the structural response when the mass ratio is large, and only thecomplete model can be accurately predict the response when the mass ratio issmall or the initial velocity is large, and the impact duration predicted bycomplete model is not influenced by the initial velocity.