Investigation of dynamic multi-cracking behavior in PVB laminated glass plates

Radial multi-cracking phenomenon can be observed in Polyvinyl Butyral (PVB) laminated glass subject to the dynamic loading which may contain abundant impact information along with the material properties of the plate. Firstly, the cracking problem is investigated experimentally based on the high-speed photography in terms of crack propagation speed and morphology. In the meantime, a numerical simulation 3D model describing the same setup is suggested and the extended finite element method (XFEM) is introduced to study the multi-crack problem after the validation from the experiment results. The length history of brittle dynamic stress intensity factors (DSIFs) of various failure modes and the crack propagation mechanism based on the displacement field of crack tip and the K criterion of brittle solid is unraveled. A parametric study is then carried out to investigate the influence of four impact and material variables on the DSIFs. It is shown that the PVB interlayer is proven to play a very important role in glass cracking DSIFs and thus governs the crack propagation behavior. Results may provide fundamental explanation to the basic crack propagation mechanism on radial multi-crack in PVB laminated glass, thus to offer guidance for impact information extraction and cracking-resistant structure design and material selection.