Prediction techniques for the scaled models made of different materials under impact loading

•A loss function considering the strain hardening and the strain rate effect is developed, which reflects the dynamic process of the impact and can be applied to any form of the constitutive equation.•The proposed similarity framework not only significantly improves the prediction accuracy of scaled models made of different materials, but is also highly extensible.•A simple and practical material selection criterion is proposed and the validity is verified by numerical simulations.