ON THE INVERSE PROBLEM OF RECTANGULAR-PLATES SUBJECTED TO ELASTIC IMPACT .1. METHOD DEVELOPMENT AND NUMERICAL VERIFICATION

A method to identify both the impact location and the transverse impac t force history from the strain responses nt certain points on a recta ngular plate is presented. The governing equations of the plate were o btained by applying the Reissner-Mindlin plate theory and the Rayleigh -Ritz method The strain response was related to the impact force by so lving the above equations using the eigenmode expansion method. A mutu ality relationship among any pairs of strain responses was used to fin d the impact location without knowing in advance the impact force hist ory. The force history was subsequently determined after the impact lo cation was identified The conjugate gradient method was adopted to sea rch for the optimal impact location as well as the force history. Nume rical verification was performed using randomly generated impact locat ions and force histories to simulate impact events, The excellent agre ement showed the effectiveness and the validity of the proposed method .