I may have to perform an impact analysis on an assembly made of steel to evaluate sheer forces on a bolted section of the assembly. I have performed drop test in the past using a drop tester and accelerometer but not an impact test. The part is pretty rigid and will be falling on a rigid surface (either steel or reinforced concrete). I was trying to find the impact duration for this type of condition and have not found any boiler plate type charts. I did see some data that indicated the duration would be in the range of 3-4 milli seconds. Taken a different approach I now have Cosmos Works Professional which has the ability to perform an impact analysis on a model. I am not sure how good this software is as I have not used it so I would like to perform some hand calculations as well to check the results. Does anyone have any resources for this type of analysis which may have impact durations for similar conditions? At least this will keep my mind off waiting for the PE results.