Experimental results on the counter-intuitive behaviour of thin clamped beams subjected to projectile impact

Abstract The anomalous experimental results on fully clamped beams subjected to projectile impact at the mid-span are presented in this paper. These results show that the permanent midpoint deflection of a thin beam may be in the direction opposite to the direction of impact. The characteristics of the midpoint deflection-time history for some tests are similar to the calculations for a pin-ended, elastic-perfectly plastic beam subjected to a rectangular pressure loading [1]. These experimental results imply that the calculated counter-intuitive behaviour observed in Ref. [1] is possible.