EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF PLEXIGLASS ACRYLIC FOR IMPACT ENERGY USING INDIGENOUSLY DEVELOPED TESTING EQUIPMENT

Toughness, also known as impact energy, should be determined for any material that is under the action of impact loading. The fabrication of impact tester and dynamic analysis of fracture will be very helpful for various materials. In this study, an Izod impact testing equipment is designed and fabricated from scratch and demonstrated. It is utilized for determining the impact energy of Plexiglass Acrylic following ASTM D-256 standard. The designed equipment was well calibrated before performing experiments. The frictional and windage losses were also calculated without placing the sample to compensate for any error. The angles observed before and after the impact were utilized to calculate the impact energy of specimens. On ANSYS, the Finite Element Analysis and explicit dynamic analysis of the specimen were also investigated. The real-time deformation of the specimen after impact was observed. The stress and strain along the length of the specimen were investigated till the notch area. The analysis revealed that the maximum stress and strain at the notch due to the fracture point of the specimen. Hence, dynamic analysis validates the accuracy of the designed impact testing procedure. © 2022, Politechnica University of Bucharest. All rights reserved.