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As a potential material for lightweight vehicle, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) has proven to perform well in optical behavior and weather resistance. However, the application in automotive glazing has seldom been studied. This paper investigates the defrost performance of PMMA rear window using both numerical and experimental methods. The finite element analysis (FEA) results were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. Based on the validated finite element model, we further optimized the defrost efficiency by changing the arrangement of heating lines. The results demonstrated the frost layer on the vision-related region of PMMA rear window can melt within 30 minutes, which meets the requirement of defrost efficiency.

For achieving vehicle light weighting, the motion deviation is calculated for substitution of PMMA glazing for inorganic glass. In this paper, a test method is proposed to measure and calculate the motion deviation of the dual-curvature glass. To simulate the dual-curvature glass, the torus surface is fitted with least square method according to the window frame data, which are measured by Coordinate Measuring Machine. By using this method, the motion deviation of PMMA glazing and inorganic glass can be calculated, which can not only validate the effectiveness of motion simulation, but also compare the performances. The results demonstrate that the performance of PMMA glazing is better than that of inorganic glass and the simulation results is validated.