Fragmentation of an axially impacted slender rod

¹  Computational Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Urbana, IL 61801, USA
²  Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Corresponding author: dcw@umich.edu

Received: 7 December 2009
Accepted: 4 February 2010

Abstract

Motivated by experimental results on the dynamic buckling and fragmentation of a vertical column impacted by a falling mass, results from an analytical model for dynamic buckling which considers the dynamic interaction between the axial column deformation and the out-of-plane buckling displacements are used to interpret the fragmentation process and the resulting fragment lengths. It is shown that a critical time exists for the rod to undergo fragmentation. At this critical time, the rod deforms in a modulated pattern of waves, setting up the stage for the ensuing fragmentation as a result of induced large curvatures that exceed the critical bending strain of the rod material. The resulting fragment length distributions, which show two characteristics peaks at and , where λ is a characteristic half-wavelength, are found to compare favorably with the experimental results.