An efficient solid-shell cohesive zone model for impact fracture analysis of laminated glass

In recent years, the cohesive zone model (CZM) coupled with linear solid elements has become increasingly popular for the impact fracture analysis of laminated glass. Meanwhile, the computational inefficiency problem accompanied by the method has also been highlighted, where the internal force calculation requires high computational cost. In view of this, this work presents a fracture model combining efficient solid-shell elements with an extrinsic CZM to improve computational efficiency. Instead of using solid elements, it is preferable to use solid-shell elements to discretize the thin-walled glass layers. Moreover, the employed pentahedron solid-shell element is more computationally efficient than linear solid elements. The extrinsic CZM, where the cohesive elements are adaptively inserted into the shared surfaces between the finite elements, is employed to represent the onset and growth of glass cracks. Numerical examples, including an out-plane bending test, an in-plane bending test, and a laminated glass plate drop-weight test are carried out in order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Finally, the computational efficiency of the proposed method in the laminated glass fracture analysis is investigated by comparison with the solid element based extrinsic CZM.