ON THE CRACK PATH IN A STRUCTURE OF NON UNIFORM STIFFNESS

The analysis of the formation of a crack in a structure impacting a body of given shape, stiffness and strength is very useful for studying the safety measures able to prevent the recurrence of the event. Numerical simulation of the phenomenon is very hard, due to the difficulties related to the role played by the time, the constraints, the geometry and the direction of relative motion of the two impacting bodies on the extent of the impact damage and on its evolution with time, in respect to that of the material having the utmost importance. The problem of the impact between two bodies having very different stiffness and shape, similar respectively to those of a tank wagon and a fixed prismatic deformable obstacle, has been faced. The achieved results significantly highlight the influence of the different parameters adopted in the study on both the tank wall punctuation phenomenon and the path followed by the crack in the wall.