Dynamic plastic response of a hinged-free beam subjected to impact at an arbitrary location along its span

In this paper, a complete solution is presented for dynamic plastic response of a rigid, perfectly plastic hinged-free beam, of which one end is simply supported or hinged and the other end free, subjected to a transverse strike by a travelling mass at an arbitrary location along its span. The governing differential equations are expressed in non-dimensional forms and solved numerically to obtain the instantaneous deflection of the beam and the plastic dissipated energy in the beam. The dynamic behavior for a hinged-free beam is more complicated than that of a free-free beam. It transpires that the mass ratio and impact position have significant influence on the final deformation. In the aspect of energy dissipation, unlike simply supported or clamped beams for which the plastic deformation consumes almost the total input energy, a considerable portion of the input energy would be transferred as rigid-body motion of hinged-free beam, and the energy dissipated in its plastic deformation is greatly reduced.