A new laminated automobile windshield called Triplex "Ten-Twenty," fabricated from two thermally stressed glass plies of 2.3 mm soda-lime float glass laminated with a 0.76 mm HPR polyvinyl butyral interlayer, has been biomechanically evaluated by Triplex Safety Glass Co., Ltd., using a dropping headform and a skull impactor, and by Wayne State University, using a 50th percentile anthropomorphic dummy on the WHAM III sled test facility. The results of these evaluations at velocities up to 60 km/h are expressed in terms of Gadd index, head injury criterion, and various laceration scales including the new Triplex laceration index (TLI). Some details are also given of other properties of the windshield. The results of the evaluations indicate that the Ten-Twenty windshield offers a reduction of about two units on the TLI scale equivalent to one of the following:
In practice, the length, number, and depth of cuts all change together so that one typical example taken from the test program of a two-unit reduction in TLI is:
On the basis of these results, Ten-Twenty is a much safer laminated automobile windshield than those now commercially available due to decreased laceration to the occupants during a collision.