Photoelastic Stress Analysis of Bonded Lap Shear Joints Having Thermoplastic Adherends

The effects of substrate stiffness and modulus on joint strength and stress distribution were investigated for a series of nylon substrates bonded with an epoxy adhesive. Substrate stiffness and modulus were controlled by the level of glass filler in the resin. Single lap shear samples having both identical (“self-bonded”) and dissimilar (“cross-bonded”) substrates were investigated. For the self-bonded samples, lap shear strength was found to increase with increasing substrate modulus and stiffness. The strengths of the cross-bonded samples were intermediate to the strengths of the corresponding self-bonded samples. Photoelastic techniques were used to observe stress patterns in the lap joints during testing. One type of stress pattern was observed for all self-bonded samples regardless of substrate stiffness. Two patterns, one for the stiff substrate and one for the more flexible substrate, were observed for cross-bonded samples. The photoelastic analysis agreed qualitatively with predictions of stress distributions based on linear elastic and linear elastic/perfectly plastic theoretical models.