Predicting the Strength of Adhesively Bonded T-joints Under Cyclic Temperature using a Cohesive Zone Model

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of cyclic-temperature environment on adhesively bonded T-joints. Experiments on steel and aluminum T-peel joints were conducted to illustrate the influence of cyclic temperature on the ultimate load of T-joints. An environmental degradation factor Deg was utilized in conjunction with a cohesive zone model (CZM) to simulate the strength of T-joints caused by temperature variation. The experimental results showed that long-term cyclic-temperature exposure caused significant degradation on the ultimate load of the T-joints. And with the increase of the temperature cycles experienced, the ultimate load of the T-joints gradually decreased. In order to model the adhesive layer between joint components and simulate the damage propagation in the interface, a CZM implemented in the finite element code ABAQUS was used. Comparison between the experimental and numerical results proved the adopted modeling procedure be successful and effective.

Keywords:

• Adhesive T-joints
• Cyclic-temperature exposure
• FEM (finite element method)
• Response surface method

Funding

This work was funded by the ‘‘973’’ National Basic Research Project of China (NO. Q10110919), the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 10932003), ‘‘973’’National Basic Research Project of China (NO. 2010CB832700), China Major Project of Ministry of Industrialization and Information of China (NO. 2011ZX04001–21), and China Central Universities Fundamental Research Funds (DUT12RC (3)95, DUT12RC (3)100, DUT15RC (3)002), The General Project of Scientific Research of the Education Department of Liaoning Province (No. L2015109), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2015M581327). These supports are gratefully acknowledged.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the ‘‘973’’ National Basic Research Project of China (NO. Q10110919), the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 10932003), ‘‘973’’National Basic Research Project of China (NO. 2010CB832700), China Major Project of Ministry of Industrialization and Information of China (NO. 2011ZX04001–21), and China Central Universities Fundamental Research Funds (DUT12RC (3)95, DUT12RC (3)100, DUT15RC (3)002), The General Project of Scientific Research of the Education Department of Liaoning Province (No. L2015109), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2015M581327). These supports are gratefully acknowledged.