A study of the dynamics of a clapper-to-bell impact with the application of a simplified finite-element model

From an engineering point of view, church bells are structures that, during ringing, are exposed to severe loading conditions. They are damaged due to material wear, fatigue loading, material deficiencies, different clapper-to-bell layouts, ringing conditions, etc. To get an insight into the wear-related damage of bells, experimental investigations and numerical simulations of the local contact between the clapper and the bell were carried out as part of the activities of an EU-funded project called Maintenance and Protection of Bells. In order to make a full-scale comparison between the measured and simulated results a simplified model was set up. In this model the clapper was replaced by a cylinder with a rounded tip that was dropped against a block representing the bell wall. The aim of the simplified model was to study the impact phenomenon in a controlled way and to adapt the numerical model for simulating the local contact. In the article the synthesis of a finite-element model for simulating the cylinder-drop test is presented. The results of the finite-element simulations of repetitive cylinder drops are compared to the data that were measured in the laboratory. The effects of the cylinder material, the cylinder radius and the drop height of the cylinder on the local elastic–plastic behaviour of the cylinder and the block are also presented and discussed.