Validation and Impact Response of Laminated Glass

Although glass has been used extensively in the course of human history, glass as a laminated structural component is a much more recent invention that came at the start of a burgeoning automotive industry, and to date, has not advanced significantly over the past few decades. One of the major challenges is extracting the material properties in order to predict failure under various loading conditions. We aim to address this shortcoming by examining the laminated glass system as a single unit via select tests designed to provide the necessary material constants and the validated load setup at the same time. To achieve this goal, we will use relatively large-size specimens (800 x 800 mm²) in both static and dynamic testing for loading perpendicular to the surface. These will be supplemented with additional tests in bending and tension and all tests, all of which can be used for finite element validation. Preliminary data shows good agreement in both static and dynamic analysis without requiring additional constituent level material tests. However, as this work is on-going, we anticipate better results with improvements to the methodology. Ultimately, this work is designed to provide a simple framework with relatively few instruments to support finite element validation efforts on laminated glass composites under dynamic loads.