Predicting the Environmental Lifetime of Adhesive Joints under Laboratory Conditions

Abstract

Adhesives are being increasingly used in civil engineering applications as a means of bonding together similar or dissimilar materials. The prediction of the strength of bonded components is therefore vitally important and different analytical approaches and methods are being used to investigate and predict the durability of adhesive joints. In this work an attempt has been made to predict the durability of butt mild steel adhesive joints subjected to static stresses in the presence of water from data obtained using double-torsion mild steel adhesive joints subjected to similar conditions. In both cases accelerated aging test equipment were built. The first step in developing a test method and model for predicting the environmental fracture data of butt adhesive joints has been proposed that was independent of the detailed butt joint geometry. The model was reasonably successful and accounted for the excessive crack tip blunting that occurred in the adhesives. This is the first time such a model is reported in the literature that may be useful when all variables are included.