NUMERICAL SIMULATION AND A SIMPLIFIED MODEL FOR THE EARLY STAGE RESPONSE OF A MILD STEEL BEAM UNDER IMPACT LOADING

There are both elastic and plastic deformation coupled in the early stage response of a beam under impact loading. The results of finite element simulation indicate that the travelling plastic hinge predicted by the rigid plastic idealisation actually does not exist. The propagation of elastic flexural waves is the dominant deformation mechaism in the early stage. In this paper, a simplified elastic perfectly plastic coupled model is proposed which gives an excellent prediction of the early stage respon...