Mechanical behaviour of adhesively single lap joint under buckling conditions

Adhesive Single Lap Joints have been subjected to tensile and bending investigations by many researchers. However, the joint is also likely to experience buckling loading in some aerospace applications. The aim of this work is to investigate the joint behaviour under quasi-static buckling conditions. For this purpose, the joints with three different adherend thicknesses and 25 mm overlap length were tested using two different types of adherends and an adhesive film. They were modelled using a non-linear Finite Element Method via the ABAQUS Explicit package programme. Load to failure and stress distributions in the joints were predicted and compared with the experimental results, which were found in a good agreement. The adhesive layer in the joint was assumed to experience shear stresses under the buckling mode, similar to that in tensile loading, yet, the stress concentrations at the ends of the overlap, the main cause of the failure, resulted in different effects on the joint performance; for the buckling mode the critical stresses were in compression but for the tensile case in peeling. Unlike the latter, the former was found to prevent failure of the layer depending on the adherend thickness, causing different failure mechanisms. There were two different failure modes of the joints; a complete failure in the adhesive layer and large plastic deformation of adherends which could be a good source for crashworthiness situations. Mechanical properties of the adherends were found to play important roles on the joint performance.