The Rebound of an Elastic Sphere Against a Rigid Wall

Abstract

The normal impact of an elastic sphere against a rigid plane is described using an elastic solution for a heavy sphere on a rigid plane found by Bondareva (1970). The solution is valid only in the case of equilibrium, but may be extended also to the dynamical case, provided that the time of duration of the impact is much larger that the time employed by the elastic waves in traversing the whole sphere after the first impact. The fundamental result is that, according to the new solution, the time of adherence between the first contact and the detachment is slightly higher than the same time evaluated according to the classical Hertz’s theory.