Acoustic Emission Monitoring for Bending Failure of Laminated Glass Used on Glass Water Slide

In recent years, a new kind of amusement ride called glass water slide has been rapidly increasing. As a key component of this ride, laminated glass may be subject to all kinds of applied loads, which impose safety risks. In addition, the test data and evaluation method for laminated glass used on glass water slide is not enough. To address this issue, a method combining acoustic emission (AE) with digital image correlation (DIC) is used to monitor the damage and deformation under three-point bend loading conditions. The results show that the lower tempered glass is broken when loaded to the maximum bending load (about 16kN), then the load dropped rapidly. Afterward, the bending load is restored to about 8kN, at the moment, the upper tempered glass is broken, which indicated the tempered glass completely failure. For the laminated glass with bonding defects, more AE signals with higher amplitude value are generated during the load process. The strain concentration and severe displacement deformation are observed when the upper and lower parts of the glass fail. The distribution characteristics of the displacement and strain fields can be well correlated with the amplitude and frequency distribution of the AE signals, revealing the whole process of the damage evolution of the laminated glass. It is suggested that the complementary technology combining AE with DIC is effective for damage monitoring and evaluation of the laminated glass.