Validation of numerical results of impact of viscoelastic slug and elastic rod through viscoelastic discontinuity analysis: Standard linear solid model

Abstract

The study is about impact of a short elastic rod (or slug) on a stationary semi-infinite viscoelastic rod. The viscoelastic materials are modeled as standard linear solid which involve three material parameters and the motion is treated as one-dimensional. We first establish the governing equations pertaining to the impact of viscoelastic materials subject to certain boundary conditions for the case when an elastic slug moving at a speed V impacts a semi-infinite stationary viscoelastic rod. The objective is to validate the numerical results of stresses and velocities at the interface following wave transmissions and reflections in the slug after the impact using viscoelastic discontinuity. If the stress at the interface becomes tensile and the velocity changes its sign, then the slug and the rod part company. If the stress at the interface is compressive after the impact, the slug and the rod remain in contact. After modelling the impact and solve the governing system of partial differential equations in the Laplace transform domain, we invert the Laplace transformed solution numerically to obtain the stresses and velocities at the interface for several viscosity time constants and ratios of acoustic impedances. In inverting the Laplace transformed equations, we used the complex inversion formula because there is a branch cut and infinitely many poles within the Bromwich contour. In the viscoelastic discontinuity analysis, we look at the moving discontinuities in stress and velocity using the impulse-momentum relation and kinematical condition of compatibility. Finally, we discussed the relationship of the stresses and velocities using numeric and the validated stresses and velocities using viscoelastic discontinuity analysis. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.