Termination conditions for three-dimensional inelastic collisions in multibody systems

In rough collisions, friction may be responsible for the self-locking phenomenon known as jam. In perfectly elastic 3D-collisions jam may lead to a second compression. For such a case, this article analyses, under the incremental Routhʹs model, the influence of material inelasticity on the termination of a single point collision in a multibody system. It is shown that there is a bifurcation concerning the terminal values of the normal impulse, the normal velocity, and the work done by the normal force. To cope with this, a suitable generalization of the energetical restitution rule has been developed, and the way to a more realistic approach is presented.