Stress Analysis and Strength Evaluation of Scarf Adhesive Joints with Dissimilar Adherends Subjected to Static Tensile Loadings

Abstract

The interface stress distributions in scarf adhesive joints with dissimilar adherends under static tensile loadings are analyzed using two-dimensional and three-dimensional finite element calculations. The effects of the adherends and adhesive Young's modulus, the scarf angle and the adhesive thickness on the interface stress distributions are examined. In addition, the joint strength is predicted using the interface stress distributions based on the maximum principal stress theory. It is found that when the scarf angle is around 60°, the singular stress at the edges of the interfaces is minimum in the 3-Dimensional FEM calculations. Furthermore, it is noticed that the strength of the joints with dissimilar adherends is smaller than that of the joints with similar adherends. For verification of the FEM calculations, the strains in the adherends and the joint strengths were measured in the experiments. The measured strains are in fairly good agreement with those obtained from FEM calculations. Also, the measured joint strength is fairly consistent with the calculated results.