How to get contact point location?

Community General Discussions
1

I’ve been googling around and not coming up with much info.

The essence of my problem is like this example: I throw a golf ball at a car door, how I would go about finding the center of the point of contact on the door?

I’m not sure where to start, the metal is thin and the ball is going hard enough for it to deform temporarily, so it’s possible to find the deepest deformation, or possibly a network of mics behind the metal and judge the point of contact from the relative volume between them (assuming no uneven sound damping material distribution)?

So, any tips of getting started would be greatly appreciated.

2

So not only do you want to find the deformation, but also the location on the vehicle itself? Most tests have an object going to a specific location each time so they don’t need to “find” where it hit. You also mention the deformation is temporary (split second)? You’re going to have to reduce the number of variables, or you’ll need o buy high speed camera equipment (which, when reviewed, should give you location and an estimate of deflection).