Influence of the Adhesive, the Adherend and the Overlap on the Single Lap Shear Strength

The single lap joint is the most studied joint in the literature in terms of both theory and practice. It is easy to manufacture and the lap shear strength is a useful value for strength assessment and quality control. Simple design rules exist such as the one present in standard ASTM 1002 or in a recent paper by Adams and Davies. The main factors that have an influence on the lap shear strength are the type of adhesive, i.e. ductile or brittle, the adherend yield strength and the overlap length. The overlap increases the shear strength almost linearly if the adhesive is sufficiently ductile and the adherend does not yield. For substrates that yield, a plateau is reached for a certain value of overlap corresponding to the yielding of the adherend. For intermediate or brittle adhesives, the analysis is more complex and needs further investigation. In order to quantify the influence of the adhesive, the adherend and the overlap on the lap shear strength, the experimental design technique of Taguchi was used. An experimental matrix of 27 tests was designed and each test was repeated three times. The influence of each variable could be assessed as well as the interactions between them using the statistical software Statview. The results show that the most important variable on the lap shear strength is the overlap length followed by the type of adherend.