Response of block foundations to impact loads

Most modern manufacturing facilities have hammers and presses as their production machinery. Foundations supporting hammers and presses experience powerful dynamic effects. These effects may extend to the surrounding and affect laborers, other sensitive machines within the same facility or neighbouring residential areas. The vibration amplitudes and the forces transmitted to the supporting medium can become the governing factor of the foundation of these machines. This paper analyzes the response of one-mass hammer foundations and provides closed-form solutions for their dynamic response to common practical forms of hammer loads: rectangular pulse, half-sine pulse, and triangular pulse. The derived solutions are used to study the effect of the pulse shape and pulse duration on the dynamic response of the one-mass hammer foundation system.