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Abstract
This study aims to investigate the effects of the surface roughness of an aluminium substrate on the adhesive joint strength of aluminium–aluminium specimens prepared using epoxy and methyl methacrylate adhesives for shear strength tests. Aluminium surfaces were mechanically abraded using silicon carbide (SiC) papers with different grit sizes in two different modes. The evaluated bonding performance characteristics included the maximum bonding strength and residual strength of the adhesive joints after their exposure to various environmental conditions. The results demonstrated that excellent adhesion characteristics were obtained at the optimum SiC grit size (grit-80) regardless of the adhesive type. In addition, the topographical and morphological properties of the aluminium surfaces were studied before and after mechanical abrasion via surface profilometry and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. A possible mechanism was proposed to explain the observed shear strength changes and respective modes of fracture after sample exposure to air, de-ionised water, and aqueous salt solutions.
Acknowledgments
We thank Mr. Marc-André Hudon from Henkel, Inc. for supplying the adhesive samples.
Author contributions
MMT: investigation, formal analysis, writing–original draft. SN: validation, writing–review and editing. DKS: conceptualisation, validation, writing–review and editing, supervision. XGC: validation, writing–review and editing, supervision. All authors have read and agreed to publish this version of the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The data presented in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author.