Adhesively Bonded Joints Between Composites

Kevin Potter

Kevin Potter 2012

Advantages of bonded joints

Load distributed over a large area High joint efficiency (Strength/weight ratio) Low part count No holes in the basic laminate Potential for low cost manufacture . Dissimilar materials can be bonded without corrosion problems

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Advantages of bonded joints

Air and water tight to some degree, although not necessarily perfect Fatigue lives of bonded construction tend to be good due to the flexibility of the adhesives With good design the joints can retain a high level of residual strength after initial cracking A bonded joint is generally aerodynamically better than a rivetted joint

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Disadvantages of bonded joints

Difficult to inspect non-destructively Very sensitive to peel loading - must be avoided Good bonds require a good fit of parts Usually permanent and cant be disassembled Strength can be affected by temperature / humidity Surface preparation is critical to a good bond Clean room conditions may be called for and the curing process must be closely controlled

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Disadvantages of bonded joints

Bonding can be expensive due to labour intensive production Most aerospace adhesives require high cure temperatures (>180C) that may damage some joint materials With poor design the joints can fail suddenly Adhesive layer may act as an electrical insulator causing problems when panels must be in electrical connection , e.g. for lightning strike. Difficult to arrive at a realistic strength by analysis
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Fundamentals of adhesion 1
Hydrogen Bond Van der Waals Interatomic Distance Bond Energy Covalent Bond

Ionic Bond

Molecular energy vs. interatomic distances for different types of bond

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Fundamentals of adhesion 2
Repulsion

Energy Resultant Attraction

Interatomic distance

Attractive and repulsive forces and the resultant for a typical molecule.
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Critical surface energies and wetting:

Adherend Material PTFE PVC Polyamide Iron Tungsten 18 40 46 2030 6800
Typical

Typical Adhesive 30 - 47

(mN/m)

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Adhesive types
Epoxides Primary aerospace adhesives in film and paste form Polyurethanes Can give very high toughness systems Cyanoacrylate Rapid cure but very brittle and low peel strength Anaerobic Generally retention and threadlocking types Reactive acrylic Tough and fast for automotive uses Phenolic (Redux) The first structural adhesive for aircraft, still used Evaporative Solvent based glues, may be used on aircraft interiors VHB Tapes High strength double sided tape Hot melt Higher strength and curing variants are now used

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Adhesive toughening
Crack-stopping elastomer microspheres in adhesive

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Basic joint types

Single lap Double lap Scarf Bevel Stepped lap Butt strap Double butt strap Butt Peel Grout
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Deformations and shear stress distribution in a single-lap bond

Totally rigid adherends uniform shear stress

Elastic adherends shear stress concentration at ends of joint

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Effect of yield on joint stresses

For most adhesive formulations used in structural applications (usually epoxies) the adhesive yields prior to failure. This yielding leads to a change in the stress distribution shown previously and makes the shear stress more uniform across the joint.

A. Prior to yielding

B. Yielding established

C. Yielding complete

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Transverse (peel) stresses

For single lap joints there is an eccentricity in the load line that leads to distortion of the adherend geometry and very high transverse tensions (or peel stresses) at the ends of the joint

For double lap joints this effect is eliminated, but there are still transverse stresses at the ends of the joint due to induced bending moments

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Adhesive failure modes in composite joints

Cohesive failure, wholly within the adhesive layer, preferred Failure due to induced through thickness stresses in the composite - very common, not ideal Adhesive failure at interface - unpredictable must avoid

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Recommended Fibre Orientations

The fibres in the layer immediately adjacent to the adhesive layer must be aligned in the same direction as the load path.

If the fibres are perpendicular to the load then premature failure WILL occur. If there are multiple potential loading directions use a plain weave cloth as the surface ply

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Design details, dos and donts

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Assembly issues 1. Tolerancing

Recommended bondline thicknesses range from about 0.1mm to 1mm, although thicker bondlines are sometimes used. This can create problems with tolerances

All dimensions need to be tightly controlled

Dimensions of each part can be relaxed

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Assembly issues 2. bondline control

Without bondline control joints can be geometrically distorted or become voidy and defective
1. Use film adhesive, gives a thin and well controlled bondline, so long as the surfaces being bonded are flat and parallel. Pressure needed Use internal spacers in centre of bondline, gives a thicker bondline but some lack of flatness is OK. Use fully tooled bonding jig to directly control bondline and fillet geometry

2.

3.

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Detail design considerations

Adherend Materials: strength, stiffness, thermal and moisture expansion coefficients, surface treatment. Adhesive properties: strength, ductility and toughness. Static, fatigue, shock and creep loading. Environment and aging. Analysis methods: Hand calcs, computer based methods Variability: bond defects, surface prep, manufacturing tolerances Inspectability Testing

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Effect of end detail on strength of steel/CFRP double lap joints Fail load (kN/mm) Steel Cl CRFP Actual 0.93 0.89 0.94 ---3.05 Theory 1.05 1.08 1.10 2.0 3.3

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Reason for improvement in strength from geometry

Max 12.3MPa

Max peel stress 12.3MPa, fails in tension in adhesive

Max 290MPa

Max peel stress for same end load 290MPa, fails in through thickness tension in laminate. In real world adhesive yielding reduces peak stress

Stress in through thickness direction in the CFRP for Linear FEA model
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Test methods

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Peel tests

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Other test methods

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Napkin Ring Test

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Boeing Wedge Test

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Some results for the Boeing Wedge Test

300 Gic J/m2 200 5% brine Hydraulic fluid Acetone

This data is for a carbon fibre / epoxy matrix composite. Most composites are not this sensitive to the environment

100

10

20 30 40 50 Hours of exposure

60

While this data is for a composite rather than an adhesive joint as such, the crack propagation is controlled by whichever is weaker of the bond and the laminate
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Recommended design practice

Bondline thickness 0.1 to 0.5mm Minimise peel loads & stresses Bond length > 30 mm Ultimate Load/unit width < 1 kN/mm Use stepped-lap joints for thick adherends Use internal end-chamfer & fillets . Use Finite Element Analysis (FEA) computer modelling to refine the geometry if needed

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Surface Preparation
Bonded joints can be very strong, but this strength is critically dependent on surface preparation, and even minor amounts of contaminants such as oil can destroy the bond strength. Surfaces must always be clean and dry prior to bonding. Surfaces are often abraded or grit-blasted prior to bonding The use of peel ply without secondary abrasion may prove to be ineffective Metallic surfaces may be acid etched or subjected to other chemical or physical pre-treatments prior to bonding.

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Estimation of joint strength 1

So long as the adhesive can yield a reasonable first estimate of maximum possible joint strength can be got from the area of the joint and the yield stress in shear. This assumes that the joint is fully yielded prior to failure and does not fail from through thickness tension or by adhesion failure, or by tension in the adhesive before complete yielding. This may be OK for short (<30mm) joints but long joints tend to fail by other processes before complete yielding. Doubling the overlap length of the joint is very unlikely to double the strength.
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Estimation of joint strength 2

Reserve of strength to tolerate flaws

Joint strength N/mm of joint width

Strength of perfect adhesive bond

Perfect bond weaker than adherends

Strength of flawed adhesive bond Flawed bond weaker than adherends Adherend strength

Flawed bond stronger than adherends

Adherend thickness Relative strengths of adherends and adhesively bonded joints (with and without flaws)
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Estimation of joint strength 3

Achieving a good prediction for the strength of a bonded joint is really rather complicated, requiring detailed stress analysis and the application of a validated failure criterion. This is generally beyond the capability of most organisations, and in any case there is no universally accepted way of carrying out the prediction. Making test joints representative of the real joint and testing them under the same loadings and environmental conditions as the real joints may be the best we can do in many cases then apply a safety factor (but what controls the safety factor?)
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Fatigue effects 1
60 50 Max average shear stress MPa 40 30 20 10 0 0 2 4 Log cycles to failure 6

Fatigue performance for well made composite double lap joints Dotted lines are 95% confidence limits on performance
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Fatigue effects 2
To confidently predict fatigue life a good consistent set of fatigue data must be available and .. Any changes in failure mode under fatigue loading at the endurance of interest must be known and understood. The fatigue test environment must be an accurate reflection of the use environment so that there is a direct correspondence between fatigue life and operational life.

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Fatigue effects 3
Mode 4 Mode 3 Mode 2 Mode 1

Load

mode 1, adherend failure, mode 2, cohesive failure, mode 3, peel failure mode 4, adhesive interface failure,
Mode 1 Mode 2 Mode 3 Mode 4

Log cycles to failure

Load/lifetime curves for different failure modes, showing that differing fatigue degradation rates for different failure modes can lead to changes in the expected fatigue failure mode

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Environmental effects, temperature and moisture

50 45
Average shear stress MPa

40 35 30 20 15 10 5

DLS, exposed. BU data UD CFRP adherends

Single lap shear 3M data CFRP cloth reinforced adherends Unexposed 90%RH 9 weeks

The single lap shear joints are more affected by low temperatures than the DLS joints due to bending/peel effects on the increasingly brittle adhesive, but are similar at high temperature. The adhesive was 3Ms EC3448 paste. Other adhesives would behave in different ways

-60 -40 -20

20

40

60

80 100

Test temperature Deg C

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Results of testing bonded I beams

3 point bending (see photo) 1st trial, steel support beam yielded 2nd trial, failure at 47Tons 4 point bending: Failure at 63Tons Failure was probably in the adhesive

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Conclusion
It is possible to make reliable high strength bonded joints with composite adherends, BUT. Through thickness (peel) failure in the laminate is critical and must be avoided Interface failure must be avoided by good surface preparation The effects of the use environment must be accounted for Simple and fully validated strength prediction methods are not available and some testing will generally be required in support of design

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