  Laminated glass units exhibit complex response as a result of different
mechanical behavior and properties of glass and polymer foil. We aim to develop
a finite element model for elastic laminated glass plates based on the refined
plate theory by Mau. For a geometrically nonlinear description of the behavior
of units, each layer behaves according to the Reissner-Mindlin kinematics,
complemented with membrane effects and the von K\'{a}rm\'{a}n assumptions.
Nodal Lagrange multipliers enforce the compatibility of independent layers in
this approach. We have derived the discretized model by the energy-minimization
arguments, assuming that the unknown fields are approximated by bi-linear
functions at the element level, and solved the resulting system by the Newton
method with consistent linearization. We have demonstrated through verification
and validation examples that the proposed formulation is reliable and
accurately reproduces the behavior of laminated glass units. This study
represents a first step to the development of a comprehensive, mechanics-based
model for laminated glass systems that is suitable for implementation in common
engineering finite element solvers.
