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Eliminating peel stress from adhesive lap joints

Hamed Abdi (Northeastern University), Jim papadopoulos (Northeastern University), Ashkan Vaziri ()

Contact Mechanics

Tue 4:20 - 5:40

Barus-Holley 161

Single lap adhesive joints are convenient and versatile ways to transmit tensile loads in bonded structures. It is well known that the adhesive in a lap joint experiences large peel stresses at the ends, which are implicated in bond failure. It is shown that peel stress is caused by the mismatch in elastic curvature of the adherends at the joint ends. Various simple geometrical modifications are shown to be effective in reducing the curvature mismatch, and thus reducing the peak peel stress. In the first example, ‘symmetric, sloped, joggle style joint’, the peak peel stress is reduced significantly in magnitude and changed from tensile to compressive. In the second one, consisting of a hook shaped and a straight adherend, the peel stress is virtually eliminated. The reduction, reversal, and elimination of peel stress have been motivated theoretically and demonstrated computationally.