Post-failure behaviour of impulsively loaded circular plates

The dynamic plastic response of a simply supported circular plate is analysed. Emphasis is given to the plate behaviour after it has broken free from the supports due to a local material failure. The theoretical rigid plastic analysis predicts various features of the response such as the time to failure, residual kinetic energy and the critical velocity at failure. The residual kinetic energy of the plate could be significant enough to cause secondary impact damage. It is shown that the shape of the plate changes after breaking free from the supports, which is important for forensic investigations. The solution for various cases were proven to be exact in the context of the upper and lower bounds theorems of the theory of plasticity.