Experimental study and numerical simulation of pipe-on-pipe impact

Experiments and numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the dynamic response in a pipe-on-pipe impact event, in which a missile (swinging) pipe with one end hinged and the other end free impinges on an orthogonal simply-supported/clamped target pipe at its centre. This study focuses on the effects of the impact location on the missile pipe and the wall thickness of the pipes. The experiments were carried out by using a spring-powered catapult impact setup, the specimens used were made of seamless steel pipes of two different thicknesses, 1 mm and 3 mm respectively, and the target pipes were clamped. Seven tests were carried out using the catapult. Numerical simulations using the explicit finite element code LS-DYNA were performed on an HPC360 workstation for each of the seven test cases. The results of the experiments and numerical simulations were compared, showing good agreement. Having confirmed the validity of the numerical model, numerical simulations were applied to the cases of a simply-supported target pipe, and the partitioning of the energy dissipation was calculated. As the response mode depends significantly on the initial impact position, the evolution of the response mode was examined numerically as the point of impact on the missile pipe was moved from the hinged end to the free end. it was found that there is a particular impact location for which the target pipe was most seriously damaged using the same impact speed. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.