Dynamics of Shallow Impact Cratering

We present data for the time dependence of wooden spheres penetrating into a loose noncohesive packing of glass beads. The stopping time is a factor of 3 longer than the time d ∕ v0 needed to travel the total penetration distance d at the impact speed v0. The acceleration decreases monotonically throughout the impact. These kinematics are modeled by a position- and velocity-dependent stopping force that is constrained to reproduce prior observations for the scaling of the penetration depth with the total drop distance.