Inhomogeneous FEM model for fracture simulation of aluminosilicate glass

Aluminosilicate glass possesses excellent mechanical and functional properties. It combines relatively low density, high hardness and strength in compression. However, the very low tensile strength and inherent brittleness are main concerns to its application. Due to the presence of microheterogeneity and randomly distributed surface flaws, the mechanical strength and failure mechanisms of silicate glasses varies considerably, even for the same glass products. In the present work, inhomogeneous FEM models were proposed and utilized to simulate the discrete failure strength and replicate the multiple crack patterns of aluminosilicate glass. Special attention was paid to the quasi-static three-point bending and ballistic impact loading conditions in this paper. The results from experiments and simulations were compared in detail and show that both the failure strength and fracture modes can be reproduced properly via the proposed numerical models both for three-point bending tests and for ballistic impact conditions. In the latter both the predicted residual velocity of projectile and the fragmentation behavior of glass tiles from the inhomogeneous FEM method show better matching than the homogeneous models.