Relaxation of Singular Stress in Adhesively Bonded Joint at High Temperature

This paper deals with the relaxation of singular stresses developed in an epoxy adhesive at high temperature. The interface stresses are analyzed using BEM. The adhesive employed in this study is an epoxy which can be cured at room temperature. The adhesive is assumed to be linearly viscoelastic. First, the distribution of the interface stresses developed in the adhesive layer under the uniform tensile stress has been calculated. The singular stress has been observed near the interface corner. Such singular stresses near the interface corner may cause epoxy layer separated from adherent. Second, the interfacial thermal stress has been investigated. The uniform temperature rise can relieve the stress level developed in the adhesive layer under the external loading, which can be viewed as an advantage of thermal loading. It is also obvious that temperature rise reduces the bonding strength of the adhesive layer. Experimental evaluation is required to assess a trade-off between the advantageous and deleterious effects of temperature.