Effect of adherend recessing on bi-adhesively bonded single-lap joints with spew fillet

Abstract

The effect of adherend recessing on the strength of full (spew)-fillet-formed bi-adhesively bonded single-lap joint (SLJ) was investigated using the finite-element (FE) method under pure tension (i.e., 20 dissimilar recess length and depth and two-type bi-adhesive bond). A three-dimensional (3D) FE model was developed for bi-adhesively bonded SLJ, which had fillet and recessed adherend, assuming that both adhesive and adherend have geometrical non-linearity and exhibit linear material behaviour. The novelty of present study is the application of recessing process on the fillet-formed bi-adhesively bonded SLJs. The bondline characteristics of bi-adhesively bonded joints with the effect of adherend recessing have been investigated by examining the distributions of the peel and maximum principle stresses (MPS) at the mid-plane of the bondline. The results from the FE simulations in which varying geometric parameters are used reveal that the combined effects of adherend recessing spew fillet and bi-adhesive bondline led to a major decrease in the peak values of the peel stress, which is the governing failure stress and MPS. A novel design that may be beneficial to improve the strength characteristics of aluminium SLJ is presented.