A general continuous contact force model for contact collisions of soft and hard materials

Accurately modelling contact impacts with remaining surface deformation or zero indentation at the separation time in mechanical systems involving soft and hard materials is crucial for accurately simulating the dynamic behaviour of a mechanical system. On the basis of a typical continuous contact force model, a general contact force model that can accurately simulate these two types of collision phenomena is proposed in this study. On the basis of the precise numerical relationship between indentation and relative velocity, the exact expression of the hysteresis damping coefficient is derived via the principle of conservation of energy, and a general contact force model is constructed. The effectiveness of the general model is verified by comparing the numerical results of the simulation with the experimental results for the corresponding types of collisions. In addition, compared with other models, the general model proposed in this article can better describe these two types of contact collisions. The general contact force model will aid in the dynamic simulation of mechanical systems.