obtaining the law of stress and strain distribution of loaded adhesive joint has significant implication for joint design and its strength prediction. The dynamic FEM model of uniaxial tensile adhesive joint was established, in which strain fracture criteria is adopted. It can be observed from the FEM results that: lapped area of the joint bears shear stress primarily, the adherend areas located away from the lapped area bear steady tensile stress mainly and the adherend areas adjacent to lapped area endure tensile and shear stress simultaneously. Based on stress distribution characters, the joint was divided into three areas (lapped area, stress transfer area and uniform stress area) and an analytical model predicting the length of stress transfer areas was developed. DIC technology was applied to measure the whole field strain of the joint. It can be seen from the DIC results that the joints area division and the model of predicting the length of stress transfer length are feasible.