High Speed Impact Characteristics of Plastic Material Based on Finite Element Simulation

Abstract

Testing material specimen on impact using high speed puncture machine can be used to observe the ability of material to withstand under a certain impact speed by looking at the energy required to tear the material. Other detail parameters such as stress, strain and tearing development on impact cannot be seen or measured. This paper presents a finite element method approach to see the strain history and the tearing sequence that cannot be obtained during impact puncture testing of plastic material (Polyethylene Terephthalate / PET). Simulations in different speed; 10 m/s (36 km/h) and 20 m/s (72 km/h) are performed employing a dynamic-explicit Impact finite element program suite. The simulations are able to capture the tearing process, to see the strain histories of tearing region and to predict the tearing pattern. The tearing pattern simulation results are verified by comparing with that from experiment.