A regularized model for impact in explicit dynamics applied to the split Hopkinson pressure bar

In the numerical simulation of impact phenomena, artificial oscillations can occur due to an instantaneous change of velocity in the contact area. In this paper, a nonlinear penalty regularization is used to avoid these oscillations. A particular focus is the investigation of higher order methods in space and time to increase the computational efficiency. The spatial discretization is realized by higher order spectral element methods that are characterized by a diagonal mass matrix. The time integration scheme is based on half-explicit Runge–Kutta scheme of fourth order. For the conditionally stable scheme, the critical time step is influenced by the penalty regularization. A framework is presented to adjust the penalty stiffness and the time step for a specific mesh to avoid oscillations. The methods presented in this paper are applied to 1D-simulations of a split Hopkinson pressure bar, which is commonly used for the investigation of materials under dynamic loading.