Real-time recovery of impact force based on finite element analysis

A compact and systematic scheme is proposed for the real-time recovery of force and location during impact events. Starting with the method of modal superposition for general dynamic systems, the equation of force recovery can be derived with an over-determining condition. The solution of a generalized eigenvalue problem for the impacted linear elastic structure is obtained through finite element analysis. In addition, to filter off unexpected noisy signals in the process of data acquisition, the dynamic responses are averaged in a least-squares sense at each time interval. The equation of force recovery is then solved by using the technique of singular value decomposition. Impact location, if unknown a priori, can also be identified with a slight modification of the current approach. Some numerical experiments of low-velocity impacts on composite laminates are carried out for validation of the proposed scheme.