The Validation of Virtual Impact Tests Using LabVIEW Instrumentation Techniques

Impact incident is a multidisciplinary subject and of interest for all engineering, robotics, aviation, defense, building, and auto industries. As the natural, accidental, or deliberate attacks involving collision events increase during present days, the demands toward the impact-resistant structures are very high and thus, it accelerates the researchers to investigate the impact responses of structures. Since steel plate has high potential to oppose the impact damages, its impact behavior is imperative to be inspected. Thence, this chapter aims to explore the impact response of the steel plates. For achieving this aim, hammer drop test is employed together with the data acquisition system and LabVIEW instrumentation techniques to measure the experimental data regarding the dynamic displacement responses of the striking bodies. Via the conventional analytical methods, i.e., Hertz contact law and Levy solution, the contact forces, and dynamic displacement are computed. Finite element package Abaqus software is implemented to virtually investigate the impact response of the steel plates. In general, the results of these three methods agree well with each other. Using these validations, the virtual hammer drop test, which is developed with the Abaqus modeling model, is certified to have high potential to predict the impact responses of steel plates accurately and particularly expedient to implement in situations where the experimental tests are not feasible to be conducted.