Abstract
This paper dealt with a two-dimensional stress analysis of adhesive butt joints filled with elastic circular fillers in adhesives subjected to external bending moments. Similar adherends and an adhesive including elastic circular fillers were replaced with finite strips in the analyses. Stress distributions in the adhesive joints were analyzed using the two-dimensional theory of elasticity and the iteration method. The effects of stiffness, location of fillers and number of fillers on the interfaces stress distributions and around the fillers were shown in the numerical calculations. It was seen that as an amount of number of fillers increased, the stiffness of filler increased and the location of fillers approached the edge of interface, the strength of joints was estimated to be more improved. It is also shown that the characteristics of the joints under bending moments are similar to those under tensile loadings. For verification of the analyses, experiments were carried out to measure the strains. The analytical results were in fairly good agreements with the experimental ones. In addition, the analytical results were also compared with those obtained from the 2-D and 3-D FEM calculations. Fairly good agreements were seen among the analytical, the 2-D and 3-D FEM results. However, it was observed that the difference in the surface stress distribution between the present analysis and 3-D FEM was substantial due to the stress singularity. Rupture tests were conducted, and joint strengths were seen to be improved by adding the fillers.
