A plate finite element for modelling of triplex laminated glass and comparison with other computational models

摘要

Laminated glass became a popular safety glass. The very soft interlayer of polymeric material impedes the slippage between glass layers, bending in parallel, by shear stress. The shear stress of the interlayer breaches the principle of straight normals remaining straight after deformation, on which is based the conventional shell elements in finite element (FE) analysis. As a result of this, the conventional finite elements are not capable to solve the laminated glass problems efficiently. Based on the assumption that the glass layers of a laminated glass obey Kirchoff's plate theory and the interlayer transfer shear stress only, a finite element formulation is elaborated by introducing new degrees of freedom and implemented in a special rectangular triplex laminated glass plate FE. The element is validated by comparison with other computational FE models and experimental tests of a laminated glass strip in cylindrical bending and a laminated glass panel in transverse loading. The developed plate element or similar shell elements that could be developed on the same theory could solve the problem with laminated glass structures very efficiently and accurately, which is now usually solved by sacrificing the fidelity.