Experimental and numerical investigations of impacting cantilever beams part 1: first mode response

In this paper, the dynamic behavior of a cantilever beam impacting two flexible stops as well as rigid stops is studied both experimentally and numerically. The effect of contact stiffness, clearance, and contacting materials is studied in detail. For the numerical study of the system, a finite element model is created and the resulting differential equations are solved using a Time Variational Method (TVM). To achieve higher computational efficiency, the Newton-Krylov method is used along with TVM. Experimental results validate the contact model proposed for predicting the first mode system dynamics. A new nonlinear force estimation function has been proposed based on measured accelerations, which enables the understanding of the impact dynamics.