On the effective constitutive properties of a thin adhesive layer loaded in peel

An experimental method to determine the complete stress-elongation relation for a structural adhesive loaded in peel is presented. Experiments are performed on the double cantilever beam specimen, which facilitates a more stable experimental set-up as compared with conventional methods like the butt-joint test. The method is based on the concept of equilibrium of the energetic forces acting on the specimen. Two sources of energetic forces are identified: the start of the adhesive layer and the positions of the two acting loads. By use of the concept of equilibrium of energetic forces, it is possible to measure the energy release rate of the adhesive layer instantaneously during an experiment. The complete stresselongation relation is found to be the derivative of the energy release rate with respect to the elongation of the adhesive layer at its start. By this procedure, an effective property of the adhesive layer is measured. That is, the fields are assumed to be constant through the thickness of the layer and only vary along the layer. To investigate the validity of this approach, experiments are performed on five different groups of specimens with different dimensions. This leads to large variations in the length of the damage zone at the start of theadhesive layer. Four of the experimental groups are used to determine the stress-elongation relation. This is found to be independent of the geometry. For the remaining experimental group, the adherends deform plastically and simulations are performed with the stress-elongation relation determined from the four elastic groups. It is found that the relation cannot be used to accurately predict the behaviour of the experiments where the adherends deform plastically. This indicates that the stress-elongation relation has limited applicability.