Shear Strength of an Aluminum Alloy Bonded with a DP-460 Adhesive: Single Lap-shear Joints

Single lap-shear joints (SLJ) specimens with and without partial round fillets were fabricated to measure the average shear strength of adhesives. The effects of the length of the adherend on the SLJ specimens were also investigated. An epoxy adhesive was used to bond aluminum alloy. Tensile tests were performed on the adhesive bulk specimens to measure the mechanical properties. The finite element analysis (FEA) method was used to measure the adhesive stress distributions, i.e., the peel and shear stresses, on the bonded part. The experimental results revealed that the specimen consisting short length of adherend and without the partial round fillets exhibited the smallest average shear strength of adhesive among the investigated specimens. FEA revealed that the low average shear strength for the specimen with a short adherend length was caused by high stress concentrations on the adhesive at the edge of the bonded part.