Development of a Correlation Test Specimen for Highly Deformable Adhesive Systems

A new adhesive test specimen design was developed which embodied several key attributes, the most important of which was inclusion of tension, mixed-mode, and shear deformation mechanisms. The specimen design was easy to manufacture, required only simple tension testing equipment to test, and provided simple specimen geometry and boundary conditions for use in finite element model correlation exercises. By design, the individual failure points for each of the deformation mechanisms within the test specimen were separated and could be related directly to characteristics of the force versus displacement information from the experimental test. Finite element predictions using a Gurson constitutive model with element deletion at failure were generated and compared with experimental test results. It was found that while the order of failure modes within the prediction was the same as that found within the test, the element deletion technique yielded an abrupt change between failure modes not seen in the experimental test, and that a more complex numerical representation of failure would be a valuable development. Overall, the test specimen development was successful in providing a simple and repeatable method by which complex cohesive failure modes in a bonded system could be evaluated and correlated back to predictive tests.