Abstract
This work aims to study the healing potential properties of a reversible thermoplastic adhesive. The adhesive is activable by using induction heating systems that can induce thermal heat in the particles throughout the electromagnetic field so they can melt the adhesive for bonding or separation procedures. The healing procedure consists of damaging single lap joint (SLJ) specimens with quasi-static and fatigue tests and then using an inductor to generate an electromagnetic field able to heat the adhesive to its melting point in order to heal the damaged SLJ specimens. SLJ tests were performed on damaged and healed specimens to assess, respectively, the residual mechanical properties of the damaged specimens and the mechanical properties after healing. SLJ tests showed that the healing procedure can completely recover the joint stiffness of the damaged adhesive joints, a huge part of the maximum shear strength and the SLJ absorbed energy. This work shows also the possibility of re-bonding completely failed or separated SLJs by using the same procedure. The mechanical properties of SLJs after healing and re-bonding are compared to the SLJ compared on virgin specimens to assess the recovered mechanical properties.
Highlights
Adhesive joints are widely adopted in many industrial sectors especially where composite materials and plastics are used, such as the automotive, naval, and aerospace sectors [1]
The use of iron oxide nanoparticles dispersed in a holt-melt adhesive that is activable through induction heating has been extensively studied by Ciardiello et al [7,8,9,10]
ND refers to non-damaged single lap joint (SLJ) specimens that were adopted as the baseline to compare the mechanical properties of the healed SLJ specimens, D refers to the damaged specimen, SH refers to the healed specimen, FAT refers to the SLJ subjected to fatigue loads (800 cycles in load control in the range 660–220 N), QS refers to an SLJ subjected to quasi-static tests interrupted in the plastic region at 80% of the maximum load, SEP refers to SLJ that were separated by using induction heating system, and CS refers to SLJ that were completely separated with SLJ test
Summary
Adhesive joints are widely adopted in many industrial sectors especially where composite materials and plastics are used, such as the automotive, naval, and aerospace sectors [1]. Lu et al [5] and Banea et al [6] reported the newest patented and proposed in literature technologies able to ease the separation processes of adhesive joints These new and innovative technologies have been studied because the current traditional techniques (the use of chemical agents, heat, or mechanical cut) lead to damage to substrates or components [5,6,7]. If the desired effect is just dismantling the adhesive-bonded joints, an alternative technique has been analysed by Banea et al [13,14,15] These studies use an inductor to heat substrates made of metal. Methodologies for evaluating the mechanical properties of a healed adhesive joint and of the re-bonding process itself are not defined in the literature
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