Impact on Laminated Glass: Post-breakage Behaviour Assessment

Emmanuel Nourry & Jean-Clément Nugue, Saint-Gobain Glass France

Thanks to its properties laminated glass, as used in building applications (protection for shops and commercial buildings, guarding, balustrading, etc.), is designed for many purposes (protection against risk of injury, against vandalism, burglary, etc.). Shock and penetration resistance, residual strength, reduction of fragments projection and laceration risk are evaluated by standard tests.

The European Standard EN 356 (categories P1A to P5A) defines the levels of protection against vandalism and burglary. The impact test method of this standard is a 4.1 kg steel ball drop test. A better understanding of laminated glass fracture behaviour during this standard test will make it possible to predict its impact resistance. Laminated glass behaviour up to perforation is therefore investigated. Input kinetic energy dissipation is made through mechanical phenomena analysis. Then, using an original interrupted impact facility which discretizes damage evolution, we quantify the glazing ability to degrade impact energy versus time. The principle of this device is to vary the perforation distance of the projectile for the same input energy. Instrumentation of the latter gives us displacement evolution during the impact. Thus, the damage evolution can be described and compared with the energy dissipation in order to characterize the impact resistance of laminated glass to the standard test.

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The Authors

	Dr. Emmanuel Nourry Ingineer Saint-Gobain Glass France Since 2002, Development Engineer of building products for the Industrial Development Center (C.D.I) of Saint-Gobain Glass France. Doctor in Mechanics of the Ecole Nationale d’Arts et Métiers (2005) wi... Read more
	Mr. jean-clément nugue Development manager saint-gobain glass Read more