State of the art on laminated glass fracture & Fracture analysis of a monolithic glass plate under 4-point bending (Gmsh & Abaqus/Standard/Explicit simulations)

Abstract

Acquiring numerical means in the laminated glass fracture domain is a challenge. Such a composite layout, made of two float glass plates sandwiching a transparent polymeric interlayer, shows indeed quite complex behaviors, differing drastically with respect to the time domain experienced. The first part of the present report details a complete analysis of those phenomena with literature findings and identifies existing material model and brittle fracture methods especially. Beside the explanations, key material parameters for suitable numerical simulations are particularly pointed out. Among the approaches followed by main brittle fracture methods, 2 families are distinguished: a continuum one with element erosion and a discrete one with cohesive zone model. As introduction case to fix glass fracture modeling capabilities, comparison between Abaqus/Explicit - Brittle Cracking (continuum) and Gmsh - DG/ECL (discrete) is carried out in the second part of the report. The chosen framework was the monolithic glass plate fracture under 4-point bending. Unfortunately, difficulties entailed by this choice restricted the analysis because of the software intrinsic limitations (especially observed for Abaqus). In that sense, comparison with experimental testing was quite unbalanced. However, in combination with traction test simulations on dog-bone shaped glass sample, a clear conclusion can be drawn. In terms of fracture energy and ability to generate relevant glass cracks pattern, Gmsh- DG/ECL stands out particularly, suggesting that a complete match with actual testing could be achieved through a large CPU expense. At the opposite, beside quite poor cracks patterns, Abaqus/Explicit- Brittle Cracking exhibit a large disproportion between captured fracture energy and viscous dissipation (and sometimes hourglass control) to stabilized the numerical scheme.