Impact between two structures is an important source of noise in industry.
However, it is not a well-known phenomenon from a theoretical point of view
. The models available in the literature for impact noise often address onl
y part of the phenomenon. In this paper, a more comprehensive model is deve
loped. The acoustic radiation due to the inelastic impact of a sphere with
a rectangular simply supported thin plate is formulated and validated exper
imentally. The impact force is calculated from Hertz's law, which has been
extended to the case of plastic deformations, and the acoustic radiation in
the time domain is obtained using Rayleigh's integral, the plate being dis
cretized in rectangular elements. The model is used to show that the sound-
radiation mechanism includes two separate sources: the initial deformation
of the plate and the propagation of the bending waves. The model is also us
ed to determine the contribution to impact noise of parameters that charact
erize the two impacting structures or the impact configuration such as plas
ticity, damping, materials, and impact velocity. (C) 2000 Acoustical Societ
y of America.