A Method Based on Generalized Stress Intensity Factor for Predicting the Effect of Adhesive Thickness on Bonded Joint Failure

The aim of this paper is to predict the effect of adhesive thickness on the failure behavior of composite adhesive joints. This is well known that in the vicinity of sharp corners of bi-material interfaces in adhesive joints, stress field is singular. Strength of adhesive joint is proportional with the intensity of stress singularity. For various thicknesses, generalized stress intensity coefficients calculated by numerical processing of finite element results and then used for prediction of joint strength. In order to capture the singular stress field accurately, very fine mesh was used around the singular points. For verifying this stress singularity model, finite element results are compared with the experimental data.