The Effects of Width on the Strength of Adhesively Bonded Z Joints Subjected to Tensile Loads

Abstract

In this study, the effect of the adherend width on the tensile strength and the failure load of Z joints was analyzed both experimentally and numerically using two adhesives with different properties. Atlac™ 580 and Flexsotix™ were used as adhesives, and adherends were prepared with two different composite materials. To identify the mechanical properties of the adhesives, the bulk specimen method was used. Then, the Z joints were prepared using the aforementioned adhesives. The Z joints were subjected to tensile loads in the experiments. The stress analyses were performed using a three-dimensional finite element method (3D FEM). The 3D FEM analyses were performed with ANSYS (10.0). The 3D FEM analyses were performed to investigate the stress distributions in the adhesive layers in the Z joints. The numerical results compared favorably with the experimental results, and were found to be quite reasonable. The results showed that the joint strength increased when the specimen width (b) was increased. To maximize the performance of the joint for either adhesive, b = 15 mm was found to be the most suitable value for the width.

KEYWORDS:

• Adhesive
• ANSYS
• Finite element method (FEM)
• Stress analysis
• Z joints

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are extremely thankful to Murat Eroğlu, İzoreel Corporation, İzmir, Turkey, for the production of the specimens and for his advice and encouragement. The authors would like to express their deep gratitude to Professor Dr. Erol Sancaktar for his valuable technical suggestions for improvements to the paper. Furthermore, we would like to thank to İhsan Pilatin and Assistant Prof. Hüseyin Aydın, the lecturer of English at Batman University, for their contributions in correcting grammatical mistakes in the paper.

Notes

E, Young's modulus; ν, Poisson's ratio; σ*, ultimate strength; G*, Shear modulus; ^a Data taken from manufacturer's catalog.

P^* _E (N): Experimental failure load of adhesives; P _FEM (N): 3-D FEM failure load of adhesives; P _R  = P _E /P _FEM (Experimental load/Finite element method load) (N).