Indentation of Spherical Head Indentors on Transversely Isotropic Composite Plates

Abstract

Impact phenomena can be resolved into a local indentation problem and a global forced vibration. In the present paper the local indentation problem is studied. The relation between the transverse force and the indentation is obtained by a superposition of the solution of the indentation of spherical head projectile in semi-infinite space and that of Boussinesq problem. An explicit expression of the relation is given. In the formula, the effect of the plate thickness on the indentation is introduced. The results agree well with the experimental results done by Tan and Sun and coincide with the finite element results. When the plate becomes thinner and/or the load is larger, the effect of the thickness on the indentation stiffness can not be neglected. The topic in the present paper has been rather extensively studied. However, the relative simplicity of this solution has some merit.