Investigation of particle - wall impact process

The objective of the present work is to develop an energetic theory of impact. The impact of glass and hardened steel spheres against the different materials' targets has been studied both theoretically and experimentally. In order to clarify the details of the impact of a rigid sphere on an ideal rigid-plastic half-space the collision process was investigated using a Laser Doppler Anemometer (LDA) measuring technique. In this paper the energetic impact theory assuming that the kinetic energy necessary to produce an indentation of unit volume at impact remains constant independently of the indentation shape was used for the determination of the maximum value of impact load and dynamic pressure produced by spherical, conical and pyramidal indenters. The experimentally observed variation of the coefficient of restitution as a function of thr test material hardness and impact velocity could be adequately explained on the basis of a simple theoretical model. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.