The effect of adhesive fillet on mechanical performance of adhesively bonded corrugated sandwich structures: an experimental–numerical study

Adhesive fillet has been proposed to improve the mechanical performance of adhesively bonded corrugated sandwich structures, but limited research can be found focusing on the effect of adhesive fillet on the stress state within the ABCSS. In this work, an experimental-FE modelling work was carried out to study the effect of adhesive fillets on the mechanical performance of adhesively bonded corrugated sandwich structures (ABCSS) under 3-point bending load. Three-point bending tests were conducted for model verification in the numerical analysis procedure on adhesively bonded corrugated sandwich structures. Additionally, load–displacement curves have been deduced to determine the load-bearing capacity and failure performance of the corrugated sandwich structures. Cohesive Zone Model (CZM) was adopted for damage analysis in the adhesive layer as well as the fillet, while detailed discussion on the stress distribution caused by various adhesive fillet geometrical dimensions was also addressed. It can be judged that increasing the fillet size can provide a smoother transition between the adhesive layer and adherend, and thus reduce the stress concentration at the edge of the overlap region. It was concluded that enhancing the size of adhesive fillets led to the better mechanical performance of the adhesively bonded corrugated sandwich structure.