The Impact Resistance of Structural Adhesive Joints

The mechanical behaviour of structural adhesives and adhesive joints under impact loading is of growing interest as adhesives are used increasingly in the construction of vehicles ranging from the family motor car to large trucks and buses. The present paper describes some initial work on the development of an instrumented impact test to study the impact behaviour of epoxy adhesives and the use of a linear-elastic fracture-mechanics approach to characterising the fracture properties.