
The significance of these results is illustrated with several examples, where
free oscillations of underdamped systems due to impacts are considered.
EXAMPLE 4.4
Impact of a vehicle bumper
2
Consider a vehicle of mass m that is travelling at a constant velocity V
o
as
shown in Figure 4.6a. The bumper is modeled as a spring k and viscous damper
c in parallel. If the vehicle’s bumper hits a stationary barrier, then after the im-
pact, the displacement and velocity of the mass are those given by Eqs. (4.13)
and (4.14), respectively. These results are used to determine the coefficient of
restitution of the system and the amount of energy that has been dissipated un-
til the time the bumper is no longer in contact with the barrier.
The bumper is in contact with the barrier only while the sum of the forces
that is, while the spring-damper combination is being compressed. At the in-
stant when they are no longer in compression the acceleration is zero; that is,
the time at which the sum of these forces on the mass is zero. The first time
instance at which the acceleration is zero is given by Eq. (4.20) for p 0, and
the corresponding velocity is given by Eq. (4.21).
Based on Newton’s law of impact, the coefficient of restitution P is de-
fined as
(a)
where v
vehicle
is the vehicle velocity, v
barrier
is the velocity of the barrier, and the
assumption that v
barrier
is zero has been used; that is, the barrier is fixed. Then,
making use of Eq. (a) and Eq. (4.21) with p 0, we find that
(b)
We now make use of Eq. (b) to examine how the coefficient of restitution
P depends on the damping factor z. Considering first the undamped case, we
note from Eq. (4.15) that w/tan w→0as , and, therefore, . In other
words, there are no losses and the system leaves with the same velocity with
which it arrived. This is consistent with the fact that this is an elastic collision.
When , the system becomes critically damped and w/tan w →1 and,
therefore, from Eq. (b), we find that ; that is, the mass leaves the bar-
rier with a velocity of 0.135V
o
.
P 씮 e
2
z 씮 1
P 씮 1z 씮 0
P
x
#
1t
vm
2
x
#
10 2
V
o
e
2w/tan w
V
o
e
2w/tan w
P
1v
vehicle
v
barrier
2
after impact
1v
vehicle
v
barrier
2
before impact
1v
vehicle
2
after impact
1v
vehicle
2
before impact
kx1t 2 cx
#
1t 2 0
140 CHAPTER 4 Single Degree-of-Freedom System
2
See also, V. I. Babitsky, Theory of Vibro-Impact Systems and Applications, Springer-Verlag,
Berlin, Appendix I (1998).