Research note on evaluation of the plastic deformation of beams under transverse impact

The permanent deformation of a rigid perfectly plastic beam subjected to a time-dependent line load is calculated. The beam has finite length, and the load is applied transversely in the middle of the span. At the initial time, the load is zero. Thereafter, the load has a triangular time dependence. For sufficiently large values of the peak load, static and moving plastic hinges appear, and the beam is subjected to plastic bending. Previous studies of this problem have provided a numerical solution of a system of approximate equations. In this article, a numerical solution of the system of exact equations is provided. The numerical results represent a significant improvement over those that were previously available.