Modelling of safety glass for crash simulation

In this paper, we present a numerical technique to simulate the crash behaviour of laminated safety glass via finite elements. As the main aspect of this work, we consider two coincided elements: a shell element for glass and a membrane element for the hyperelastic PVB-interlayer. We give an overview of hyperelastic models, which are used in crash simulations and investigate the material laws by Blatz–Ko, Mooney–Rivlin and Ogden. The obtained stress–strain curves are fitted by experimental results of the interlayer. For a comparison, we use an one-material-model with piecewise linear plasticity and a laminated glass model assigning material properties to the integration points. As practical applications, we simulate an impact of a sphere into a glass plate and investigate the behaviour of a windscreen during a roof crash.