PII:

Engineering Fracture Mechanics Vol. 60, No. 4, pp. 437446, 1998

# 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0013-7944/98/$ - see front matter
S0013-7944(98)00024-1

ANALYSIS OF LOAD OSCILLATIONS IN INSTRUMENTED

IMPACT TESTING
S. SAHRAOUI{
Laboratoire d'Acoustique de l'Universite du Maine, U.M.R.-C.N.R.S. 6613, 72085 Le Mans Cedex 9,
France
and
J. L. LATAILLADE
Laboratoire Materiaux Endommagement Fiabilite, ENSAM, Esplanade des Arts et Metiers, 33405
Talence, France
AbstractThis work deals with the dynamic fracture tests of the 3-point bending notched specimen.
The apparent frequency of the load oscillations is investigated for dierent materials (steel, aluminium,
PMMA and Al2O3). It is shown that the contact stiness between the striker and the specimen plays a
predominant role in the vibrating aspect of the impact. The 2 degrees of freedom (dof), intensively used
in the literature, can predict the oscillations qualitatively, but cannot realistically model all the details
of the vibrations of the specimen. A numerical model with several dof is considered by means of a
modal analysis and analyzed through the experimental program. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All
rights reserved
Keywordsimpact testing, load oscillations, numerical analysis..

1. INTRODUCTION
THE INSTRUMENTED impact test is generally used to measure the toughness of materials. It is
general practice to measure and record the force which is acting on the specimen during the
impact. The simplicity of the 3-point bending impact test is sometimes taken as a justication
for its use, where a more fundamental form of test would be dicult or expensive to carry out.
Nevertheless, the dynamic eects resulting from the transverse impact are the principal inconvenience of these tests. Many investigations have been focused on the analysis of inertia eects for
evaluating the dynamic response of materials [14]. In order to overcome these diculties, some
authors have proposed various solutions such as: the inverted pendulum [5], a soft material
between the specimen and the hammer [6], the impact response curve and time-to-fracture
measurements [7], and numerical modelling [8, 9]. To understand the dynamic eects of the 3point bending impact, some authors have proposed simple numerical models where the specimen
is represented by a spring-mass system [1012].
The approach adopted for instrumented impact testing [13] assumes that a quasi-static equilibrium prevails in the specimen. One of the ASTM requirements is based on the Server empirical relation [14] giving the period of the apparent specimen oscillations. Initially developed for
metallic materials, this standard is sometimes applied to polymers [15], ceramics [16] and
concrete [17].
The numerical and experimental work described below was initiated with two aims. Firstly,
to study the vibration response of the full mechanical system (specimen and loading device) to
the impact by means of an adapted model. Secondly, to examine the Server relation in various
experimental conditions.
{Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed.
437

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S. SAHRAOUI and J. L. LATAILLADE

Table 1. Specimen's characteristics
Steel

Aluminium

Dimensions
LBW
(mm)
Notch
length (mm)

40  10  10

E(GPa)
r (Kgdm3)

40  10  10

2
5

200
7.8

80
2.7

PMMA
40  4  10
40  7.8  10
40  5  10
40  10  10
1.5
2
5
5
1.2

Alumina

Concrete

32  4  4

229  25  76

0.5
1
2
270
3.8

1.1

2. EXPERIMENTATION
2.1. Specimen details
Four materials were investigated in this study as indicated by Table 1. The concrete data
are derived from the literature[17].
A particular problem with polymeric materials is that the value of Young's modulus E is
often dependent upon the loading rate. The values presented above are obtained at 300 1 strain
rate by means of a split Hopkinson tensile bar apparatus [18].
In all experiments described here, the geometry was that of the Charpy test employing 3point bending, as shown in Fig. 1.
2.2. Experimental set-up
The tests were conducted using two dierent devices.
1. A commercial Charpy pendulum (Wolpert, Germany). The tup of the hammer (7.5 J) has
been instrumented with strain gauges to sense the compression loading of the tup while it is
in contact with the test specimen. The velocity with which the striker impacted against the
specimen could be varied by changing the angle from which the striker was released. The
impact velocity can reach 4 m/s. This Charpy pendulum is able to test brittle ceramic specimens which need a low fracture energy and it has been used for the rebound tests described
below.
2. A horizontal line nose aluminium projectile guided by means of two V-supports. The friction
is minimized using teon bearings at the contact surfaces. This projectile is launched at a
desired velocity (0.52 m/s) by a gas gun. Strain gauges are xed on the projectile at a chosen
position in order to avoid the superposition between incident and reected waves at the
beginning of the impact. The striker length is increased so as to reduce its fundamental frequency (around 4.5 kHz) and then to minimize the load signal perturbation. Two gaugebridges were xed at two diametrically opposite points on the striker surface. The geometric
details are indicated in Fig. 2.
The load signals derived from each apparatus are digitally stored in a transient recorder and
then analyzed in a computer station (Fig. 3).

Fig. 1. Specimen geometry

Analysis of load oscillations in instrumented impact testing

439

Fig. 2. Line nose striker.

2.3. Contact stiness determination

In a simple spring and mass model of dynamic eects in impact tests, the shape of the
force-time response depends on the ratio of the contact stiness between the specimen and the
striker, and the bending stiness of the specimen [19]. The techniques for determining the compliance (Cm) of a Charpy impact machine are described by Ireland in ref. [2]. We performed
rebound tests on a known compliance specimen at low impact velocity for measuring the contact time (tc) as shown on the typical load-time record (Fig. 4). Then:
p
tc p mCt ;
where m and Ct are, respectively, the striker mass (the specimen mass is neglected) and the total
compliance. We obtain:
Cm Ct Cs ;
where Cs is the specimen compliance. We assume a rigid contact at the two supporting points

Fig. 3. Instrumentation.

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S. SAHRAOUI and J. L. LATAILLADE

Fig. 4. Typical load-time record in a rebound test.

and then Cm is considered as the contact compliance C (C = 1/kc) between the striker and the
specimen.
Table 2 gives the contact stiness values for dierent experimental conditions.

3. NUMERICAL APPROACH
3.1. Beam vibration theory
The linear vibrations of beams are governed by the well-known partial dierential
equation:
EI

@4
@2
yx; t rA 2 yx; t 0;
4
@x
@t

where E, I, r and A represent, respectively, Young's modulus, the second moment of area, the
volumic mass and the cross-sectional area. The deection y(x,t) is illustrated in Fig. 5.
Each vibration mode has an angular frequency on given by:
s
EI
2
;
2
o n ln
rAL4
where ln is determined by the boundary conditions. In the case of a simply supported specimen,
we have:
sin ln 0
then:
ln np;

n 1; 2; . . .

In the case of free specimen, the boundary conditions lead to:

Table 2. kc (MNm1) values for various specimens
Charpy
pendulum
Aluminium
striker

PMMA

Steel

Aluminium

Alumina

16

34

22

13

Analysis of load oscillations in instrumented impact testing

441

Fig. 5. Beam coordinate.

cos ln cosh ln 1;
hence:
p
l1 3:011 ;
2
p
ln2 2n 1 :
2
If we introduce the specimen compliance (in 3-point bending conguration):
C

L3
;
48EI

the angular frequency takes the form:

l2
on pn rCLBW1=2
4 3

where the thickness B and the depth W are indicated in Fig. 1.

3.2. Numerical models
Many numerical investigations are focused on the 3-point bending impact. In the nite element approach, the contact interaction between the specimen and the striker is not taken into
account. The specimen loading is treated as an imposed load problem (nal-peak-sawtoothpulse loading) [8] or as an imposed displacement problem (i.e. constant velocity at the impact
point). In order to introduce the contact stiness, simpler models (spring-mass) have been proposed: Williams and Birch [10] consider successive collisions between the specimen and the striker with a given restitution coecient; Suaris and Shah [11] and Williams [12] study a 2 degree
of freedom (dof) mechanical system where the striker is replaced by another spring-mass model
(this spring represents the contact stiness); and Mills and Zhang [6] introduce the damping and
a unilateral contact at the impact point.
A more elaborated discretization is performed to include the exural oscillations and the
contact interaction between the striker and the specimen [20]. The simply supported beam is
replaced by a chain of n elements connected by hinges, supporting concentrated masses with
springs giving a restoring torque. The beam-tup mechanical system is represented by n + 1 dof
(Fig. 6), where the linear stiness kc represents the specimen-tup contact interaction. The impact
is treated as an initial conditions problem with n + 1 dof and solved through a modal analysis.
Further details of this approach may be found in previous papers [20, 21] from which we can
summarize the following results:
. only the symetric modes are present in the specimen oscillations (Oi is the angular frequency
of the ith symetric mode);
. Figure 7 illustrates (for n = 9) the variation of O2/o1 through Cs/C (o1 is the fundamental
angular frequency of the simply-supported specimen).
From this model, the load oscillations are considered as a combination of a ``quasi-static'' force
corresponding to the bending specimen (1st mode), and a dynamic force which is related to the
vibration of the specimen around its equilibrium conguration (Fig. 8).

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S. SAHRAOUI and J. L. LATAILLADE

Fig. 6. Modelization of the specimen-tup system.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The typical load-time records in instrumented impact testing are represented in Fig. 9.
These experimental records are used for determining the apparent frequency.
We observe that the records correspond qualitatively to a superposition of two modes: the
so-called quasi-static mode and the second mode as described in the above numerical approach
section. The frequency of the oscillations is not the fundamental frequency of the specimen. It
was interesting to note that the relation in eq. (4) does not give an approximate value of this
observed frequency in any boundary conditions. After some transformations, eq. (4) can be written as:
Tn 2p=on an

W
EBCs 1=2 ;
c0

where c0 is the sound velocity in the material and an is a coecient listed in Table 3.
The apparent period t of the specimen oscillations is given by the empirical relation
(known as SERVER relation):
t 3:36

W
EBCs 1=2 :
c0

This relation, obtained for metallic specimens at a specic shape (L/W = 4), is the basis of the
ASTM standard for Charpy impact testing [14]. The empirical value 3.36 in eq. (6) can be compared to the an values in freefree conguration (Table 3). As suggested by Server [14], the oscillations during the impact appear to be a combination of rst and second symetric specimen
modes with mode 1 dominating. In fact, this combination is qualitatively comparable with the
numerical shape given in Fig. 8 and corresponding to this rst and second symetric modes of
the specimen-tup system (Fig. 6).

Fig. 7. O2/o1 vs kc/ks.

Analysis of load oscillations in instrumented impact testing

443

Fig. 8. (a) Load oscillations, (b) corresponding specimen shape.

According to the above described numerical model, the experimental values O2/o1 (normalized apparent oscillations frequency) are determined and compared with numerical results
(Fig. 10). The contact stiness kc has been obtained from each material using the rebound test
described above. This stiness is assumed independent of the specimen dimensions and the
impact velocity. The value 2.6 (dashed line in Fig. 10), computed from the relations in eqs (5)
and (6), gives the normalized apparent frequency by the fundamental frequency of the simplysupported specimen (L/W = 4).
The 2 dof model curve (Fig. 7) is obtained by simple calculations [17]:


O2
kc 1=2
1
:
7
o1
ks
We observe a good agreement between the present numerical model, the 2 dof model and the
experimental values for low kc/ks ratio.
It was interesting to examine the concrete data derived from the literature [17] and indicated
in Fig. 10. The authors have pointed out the analogous values between the apparent half period
computed by using their 2 dof model and the Server relation (eq. (6). They have confused the
Table 3. an values (eq. (5)
Simply supported

L/W = 4
L/W = 8

Freefree

First mode

Third mode

First mode

Third mode

8.83
12.48

0.98
1.39

3.89
5.50

0.72
1.02

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S. SAHRAOUI and J. L. LATAILLADE

apparent period relation with the half period one. Obviously, their results correspond to a lower
value of the frequency and are corroborated by our model as mentioned in Fig. 10.
For high kc/ks ratio the 3 dof model is too far from experimental results which are enclosed
by Server relation values and the 10 dof model.
The measured contact stiness kc through the rebound test is lower than its real value. This
fact is following the innite rigidity hypothesis at the two specimen supports and can explain
the gap between experimental values and numerical curve at low kc/ks.
Globally, the Server relation is an interesting tool for dynamic fracture toughness testing of
metallic materials, as well as some non metallic ones. It should be useful to investigate more sys-

Fig. 9a and bCaption opposite

Analysis of load oscillations in instrumented impact testing

445

Fig. 9. Fracture test load-time record: (a) steel, (b) aluminium, (c) PMMA and (d) alumina.

temically the dynamic response of such materials with the objective to check the apparent frequency relation for other specimen shapes (L/W = 6, 8, . . .).
5. CONCLUSION
The present study has pointed out the importance of the second mode of vibrations of the
full mechanical system (specimen and tup or striker) which is dependent on the contact stiness.
The contact stiness hypothesis, for characterizing the interaction between the tup and the specimen, seems to be an appropriate method to evaluate the load oscillations frequency.
The model presented in this work gives a more realistic result than the 2 dof model which
is less accurate for high relative contact stiness.

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S. SAHRAOUI and J. L. LATAILLADE

Fig. 10. Experimental apparent frequencies vs contact stiness (see Fig. 7).

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(Received 10 June 1997)