Estimating the impact force of falling objects

Abstract

Drop test is a common testing method in testing the durability of a product. In this report,

a drop test simulation will be carried out on an object, in which bottle was chosen as the

falling object. The goal is to perform finite element simulations of the drop test and study

the impact behavior of the falling object through the simulation.

The finite element simulation will be conducted using ANSYS. The bottle was first being

modeled using the properties of the bottle that was found available in the market. The

bottle was modeled in a way that it was made of a single element. Thin shell element was

assigned to the model. Boundary conditions such as initial height and velocity were

applied to the model in the simulation study. The drop test simulation was conducted to

investigate the different orientations, different height levels being drop and the impact

response of the model. It was observed that the smaller surface area of impact, the higher

the stress concentration. However, the different height level chosen in this report did not

produce significant results for the stress concentration produced from the drop test. It was

also observed that after an impact the bottle bounced off an insignificant distance before

coming to a stop. It was concluded that the simulation of the falling object reflected of

what was expected. The simulation behavior was not totally the same as experimental

behavior but somewhat similar. However, specific data of the experimental results was

not known since no physical drop test was carried out.