Effect of adhesive thickness and surface treatment on shear strength on single lap joint Al/CFRP using adhesive of epoxy/Al fine powder

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of adhesive thickness and surface treatment on the shear strength and failure type characteristic of single lap joint (SLJ) CFRP/Al using adhesive epoxy/Al-fine-powder. The CFRP was produced by using hand layup method for 30% of woven roving carbon fiber (w/w) and the resin used was bisphenolic. The adhesive was prepared using 12.5% of aluminum fine powder (w/w) in the epoxy adhesive. The powder was mixed by using a mixing machine at 60 rpm for 6 minutes, and then it was used to join the Al plate-2024 and CFRP. The start time to pressure for the joint process was 20 minutes after the application of adhesive on the both of adherends. The variables in this research are adhesive thickness (i.e. 0.2 mm, 0.4 mm, 0.6 mm, 0.8 mm and 1 mm) and surface treatment of adherends (i.e. acetone, chromate sulphuric acid, caustic etch and tucker’s reagent). Before shear testing, all specimens were post-cured at 100 °C for 15 minutes. The result shows that the SLJ has the highest shear strength for 0.4 mm of adhesive thickness. When the adhesive thickness is more than 0.4 mm (0.6-1 mm), the shear strength decreases significantly. It might be caused by the property change of adhesive from ductile to brittle. The acetone surface treatment produces the best bonding between the adhesive and adherends (CFRP and Al-plate 2024), and the highest shear strength is 9.31 MPa. The surface treatment give the humidification effect of adherend surfaces by adhesive. The failure characteristic shows that the mixed failure of light-fiber-tear-failure and cohesive-failure are occurred on the high shear strength of SLJ, and the low shear strength commonly has the adhesive-failure type.