| Abstract: | The practical strength of a butt-joint specimen is of great importance to many industrial applications such as adhesive joints, elastomer mountings, flexible couplings, etc. A butt-joint specimen could fail either cohesively or interfacially, depending on the strength of the materials and the stress distribution in the specimen. In the past, engineering design has been based either on theoretical linear analysis or on empirical rules of thumb. A more realistic analysis based on the nonlinear finite element (FE) method is presented here. The elastomer layer in the butt-joint specimen is modeled by a modified Ogden-Tschoegl strain energy function. The nonlinear axisymmetric FE program is formulated on the total Lagrangian procedure. The nominal strain, the thickness of the rubber layer, the compressibility (or Poisson's ratio), and the strain-hardening (or softening) parameter are taken as the variables in the analysis. The maximum radial and axial stresses are found along the central axis, while the maximum shear stress is near the corner of the bond plane and the free lateral surface. The stiffness as a function of the apparent strains is obtained for various thicknesses, various Poisson's ratios, and various strain-hardening parameters. The lateral contraction and the volume dilatation of the specimen are also calculated and related to the stress distribution in the specimen. A well-defined peak load occurs at a critical strain for thin specimens made of materials with a low strain-hardening parameter and high Poisson's ratio values. |
