Equivalent Static Force in Heavy Mass Impacts on Structures

Abstract

Structural engineers usually make simple hand calculations to pre-design structures before performing further complex analysis. However, in the case of structures subjected to impact loads, the problem is quite difficult to cope with, due to the lack of knowledge about simplified methods of analysis that can reproduce with sufficient accuracy the structural behavior, in order to establish an adequate pre-dimensioning, prior to a computer calculation. In this paper, a new formulation is presented to solve the problem of large mass impact on any kind of structure in a simplified way. The method enables a force equivalent to the impact load to be obtained that enables analysis as a static load case.