Transducer like perturbations applied at one end of a chain of steel balls inside a copper pipe

I am trying to simulate a piezoelectric transducer used as an actuator to perturb a chain of steel balls in a copper pipe in contact with a second transducer at the other end. I am trying to simulate the motion of the balls and calculate their positions vs time.

I have a model with a ceramic cylinder undergoing harmonic perturbation with an applied boundary load in contact with one of the balls with a fixed body constraint and cant seem to create a contact between the two objects; when I run the simulation the perturbed ceramic goes through the ball instead of creating displacements via contact.