hi. i am trying to emulate a simulation on ballistic impact on gelatin block. i use regular steps usually used for impacts. but something is off.

each time impact occurs, there is a great stress and cavity in the impact face. but after the first few elements, it appears as if the ball just goes through the block with no effect. the PEEQ visualization doesn't even show any number (all 0 blue) despite obvious deformation. the article and project both assume block as linear plastic-elastic

what is going wrong?

settings:

_Step:

dynamic explicit step with mass scaling of 10000 (computation time is still slow)

_Interaction:

general contact with friction coeff 0.2 and normal hard contact (0 friction and no normal were tested too). surface to surface always gave errors

ball is constraint to a RP in its center as rigid body (coupling always gave errors and kept ball in place. as if locking it)

_Assembly:

nothing important. no constraints there.

_Property:

density and isotropic elastic

ductile damage with evolution.

plastic strain ( rate dependent Johnson-cook and isotropic were both tried)

hyper-elastic would give errors if used with plastic

_Mesh:

more fine element in the impact zone, with explicit linear setting. hourglass was tested on viscous, enhanced and default. deletion is on.

_Load:

pre-defined field of velocity in initial step towards block face