Suppression of Stress Concentration by Double-sided Tapes for Adhesively Bonded Single-lap Joint

Abstract

In recent years, the demand for adhesive bonding has been increasing to facilitate multi-material structure. However, the single-lap joint, which is the most widely used joint, causes stress concentration at the edge of the bond-line. In addition, the joint strength significantly depends on bond thickness although it is difficult to be controlled particularly for the thin adhesive layer. This study aims to suppress the stress concentration by utilizing double-sided tape at the edge of bond-line while also adjusting the thickness of the adhesive layer. The single-lap joint of a PMMA plate and an aluminum plate was prepared as a sample. Tensile tests were conducted to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed joint by comparing with the adhesive joint and the bolted joint. As a result, the bolted joint was the weakest because of the stress concentration by holes on the PMMA plate. The proposed joint showed more than 30 % increase of the strength compared with the adhesive joint.