On the Inverse Problem of Rectangular Plates Subjected to Elastic Impact, Part II: Experimental Verification and Further Applications

Experimental verification of the method developed in Part 1 to identify both the impact location and the force history from strain responses on a rectangular plate was performed. Results showed the validity of the method in a real impact event. Also, a method was developed to further identify the initial velocity and the mass of an impactor by which a transverse impact was induced. This was accomplished by solving algebraic equations obtained from the assumption that the lateral displacements of both the impactor and the plate at the impact point were coincident during the contact period. Moreover, the inverse problem using incomplete response signals as the given data was investigated. A procedure to temporarily reconstruct the lost portions of the recorded signals was first presented, and the identification problem could then be solved by similar methods as that used for the complete response signals. Experimental verification was also performed. The agreement between the measured and the identified results was very satisfactory.