Effect of Joint Reformation on Adhesive Strength of 6061 Aluminum Alloy to Polycarbonate Lap Structures

Adhesive-bonded joints are widely used in the industry. Recently, applications of adhesive bonding joints have been increased extensively in automobile and aircraft industry. The strength of adhesive joints is influenced by the surface roughness, adhesive shape, stress distribution, and etc. However, the magnitude of the influence has not yet been clarified because of the complexity of the phenomena. In this study, as the fundamental research of adhesive bonding joints, the effects of adhesive shape and loading speed on bonding strength properties and durability of aluminum to polycarbonate single-lap joints were studied. To evaluate the effect of adhesive shape, several modified shapes were used, and loading speeds were varied from 0.05 to 5mm/min. As a result, the load distribution showed a brittle fracture tendency. The trigonal edged single lap and bevelled lap joints showed the higher strength than the plain single lap, trigonal single lap, joggle lap and double lap joints in same adhesive area. The fractures of trigonal single lap and trigonal edged single lap joints that had the higher strength level were shown as the mixture type of the cohesive and interfacial-failure, mostly joggle lap joints that had the lower strength level were shown as the adhesive-failure.