A preliminary experimental study about two-sided impacting SDOF oscillator under harmonic excitation

Shaking table tests have been carried out to investigate the pounding phenomenon between a mass and two-sided shock absorbers, subject to sinusoidal excitations. In an effort to investigate the effectiveness of such an impact mitigation measure, preliminary tests were carried out: First, the dynamic response was recorded without pounding, and second, the test structure was placed with gap separation and pounding was induced. Absolute acceleration, relative excursion, mean contact force, coefficient of restitution, and dissipated energy were recorded at steady state and the excitation frequency range for pounding occurrences was determined. Numerical predictions were made by using a contact model for the simulation of impacts, able to appropriately describe the behavior of rubber under impact loading. Good agreement between the experimental and the numerical results was achieved.