Fatigue life estimation of adhesive bonded shaft joints

Fatigue tests and analytical investigation of adhesive bonded shaft joints were conducted to propose the estimation method of fatigue strength. Two kinds of adhesive bonded joints were studied: one, shaft joints connected with adhesive coupling, the other, adhesive joints of thin wall tubes to obtain standard fatigue strength. Both pulsating tensile and torsional fatigue tests were conducted with each adhesive joint. Furthermore, the stress distributions under tensile and torsional load conditions were analyzed by finite element method. Based on the analytically computed maximum normal shear stress in the adhesive layer, fatigue strength of the shaft joints was tandardized and compared with that of adhesive joints of thin wall tubes. As a result, it is confirmed that the maximum normal and shear stresses are key parameters for estimating fatigue strength under pulsating tensile and forsional load conditions, respectively. Furthermore, this study indicates an improved method of estimating fatigue strength by using tapered coupling order to reduce the stress concentration at the end of the adhesive layer.