THE IMPACT OF RECTANGULAR-PLATES MADE FROM STRAIN-RATE SENSITIVE MATERIALS

An experimental investigation on clamped metal plates the surfaces of which are struck by a rigid wedge is reported in this paper. A simple theoretical procedure based on the rigid perfectly plastic method is u sed to study the dynamic behaviour of locally impacted plates, using a strain-rate sensitivity factor on the average dynamic yield stress. G ood agreement is obtained between analysis and experiment for the maxi mum permanent deflection of impacted steel plates. Several important f actors influencing the accuracy of the analysis-such as the deformatio n mode and elastic effects-are assessed in terms of experimental resul ts.