Pantelakis 2013
Pantelakis 2013
Received April 11, 2013; accepted May 30, 2013; published online December 10, 2013
In this review paper, the challenges and some recent developments of adhesive bonding technology in composite aircraft
structures are discussed. The durability of bonded joints is defined and presented for parameters that may influence bonding
quality. Presented is also, a numerical design approach for composite joining profiles used to realize adhesive bonding. It is
shown that environmental ageing and pre-bond contamination of bonding surfaces may degrade significantly fracture tough-
ness of bonded joints. Moreover, it is obvious that additional research is needed in order to design joining profiles that will en-
able load transfer through shearing of the bondline. These findings, together with the limited capabilities of existing
non-destructive testing techniques, can partially explain the confined use of adhesive bonding in primary composite aircraft
structural parts.
Citation: Pantelakis S, Tserpes K I. Adhesive bonding of composite aircraft structures: Challenges and recent developments. Sci China-Phys Mech Astron,
2014, 57: 211, doi: 10.1007/s11433-013-5274-3
© Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 phys.scichina.com link.springer.com
Pantelakis S, et al. Sci China-Phys Mech Astron January (2014) Vol. 57 No. 1 3
parts such as the load to be transferred by pure shear of the of CFRP bonded joints was investigated experimentally. In
bondline, the susceptibility of the joint (adhesive and adhe- the study, two different structural adhesives were used: the
sive/substrate interface) into environmental ageing and well-established structural adhesive Epibond 1590 A/B and
pre-bond contamination [1,5,6] as well as the unknown fa- the new LMB adhesive. The experimental procedure and
tigue behavior of bonded joints [4]. main findings of this work are described in the following
In this review paper, some of the above mentioned chal- paragraphs.
lenges will be discussed in detail and some recent develop-
ments on the durability of bonded joints, on the parameters 2.1 Materials and specimens
that may influence bonding quality as well as on the nu-
merical design of composite joining profiles will be pre- The laminated adherents were made from 8 plies of the pre-
sented. preg AS4/8552 composite material. The lay-up of the plates
was quasi-isotropic. The adherents were bonded using the
Epibond 1590 A/B [13] adhesive and the epoxy LMB adhe-
2 Effect of accelerated environmental ageing sive. The Epibond 1590 A/B adhesive is a structural adhe-
sive designed for aerospace applications. It is a two-part
Aircraft structures during service are subjected to various paste epoxy adhesive capable of service up to 177°C. The
environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, radiation, LMB adhesive is a prototype two-part paste adhesive with
etc). This is why the engineering community makes the improved peel performance, hot/wet Tg and processing
great effort to investigate the possible effects of environ- (slump) compared to the Epibond 1590 A/B adhesive. In ref.
mental ageing on the structural integrity of aerostructures [12] the effect of adhesive thickness was also included by
[6–11]. The investigation refers to both metallic structures, considering two different thicknesses, namely 0.5 mm and
where corrosion is the main problem, and to polymeric 1.5 mm.
structures such as composite materials and structural adhe-
sives. Several research papers have reported on this subject. 2.2 Mechanical testing
For instance, in ref. [7] six structural adhesives were tested
under different loading conditions after being exposed for 8 Mode I tests were conducted on the Double Cantilever
years into different environments. A similar work was per- Beam (DCB) specimen according to AITM 1.0053 [14]
formed in ref. [8] where the degradation in strength due to standard. A schematic sketch of the DCB specimen is given
accelerated ageing of two epoxy adhesives was experimen- in Figure 1(a). In facilitating crack propagation (debonding),
tally measured. In ref. [8] the critical strain energy release a pre-crack of length between 35 and 40 mm was initially
rate of wet-aged and reference specimens was measured created at one side of the specimen. Afterwards, the speci-
under several mixed mode loading ratios. It was found that men was unloaded until pre-crack was completely closed
the combined effect of temperature and moisture degrades and reloaded until the desired crack length (~100 mm) with
significantly the respective critical strain energy release rate
of the aged specimens. In ref. [9] mechanical tests were
conducted to assess the effect of moisture content on the
static strength of uncured adhesively bonded steel joints.
The results showed that exposure for 1008 h in a hot humid
environment decreases the strength of adhesively bonded
steel joints by 96%. In addition to ref. [9], the effect of age-
ing on the mechanical performance of adhesive bonded
Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) and aluminum
specimens was investigated in refs. [10,11], respectively.
The study on CFRP bonded structures was performed using
high-frequency dielectric analysis after exposure to condi-
tions of 70oC and 100% humidity. It was found that speci-
mens exhibit a significant loss of strength over the pro-
longed exposure period ref. [10]. Moreover, in ref. [11] the
effects of environmental moisture and temperature on fa-
tigue threshold and crack growth behavior of P2-etched and
commercial coil-coated aluminum bonded joints were stud-
ied under mixed-mode loading conditions.
In the frame of the investigation of durability of compo-
site bonded joints used in aeronautical structures, in ref. Figure 1 (a) Schematic sketch of the DCB specimen, (b) schematic
[12], the effect of accelerated ageing on fracture toughness sketch of the ENF specimen.
4 Pantelakis S, et al. Sci China-Phys Mech Astron January (2014) Vol. 57 No. 1
9 Pa 2 d 1000
GIIC , (2)
2W (1 / 4 L3 3a 3 ) Figure 2 (a) DCB specimen during mode I testing, (b) ENF specimen
during mode II testing.
where d is the displacement at crack propagation onset, P is
the critical load required for crack onset, a is the initial
crack length and L is the span length [15]. Eq. (2) can also
be related to mode II critical stress intensity factor KIIC for
plane strain. The ratio GIC/GIIC is directly related to
(KIC/KIIC)2 [16].
Figure 2(a) illustrates a DCB specimen during mode I
testing while Figure 2(b) an ENF specimen during mode II
testing.
Mode I tests
Epibond 1590 LMB
t=0.5 mm t=1.5 mm t=0.5 mm t=1.5 mm
Reference 5 5 Reference 5 5
Thermal ageing 5 5 Thermal ageing 5 5
Wet ageing 5 5 Wet ageing 5 5
Mode II tests
Epibond 1590 LMB
t=0.5 mm t=1.5 mm t=0.5 mm t=1.5 mm
Reference 5 5 Reference 5 5
Thermal ageing 5 5 Thermal ageing 5 5
Wet ageing 5 5 Wet ageing 5 5
adhesive thickness on fracture toughness of the CFRP than those of the Epibond 1590 A/B adhesive revealing an
bonded joints. advantage of the LMB over the Epibond 1590 regarding the
The load-displacement curves measured during mode I resistance to shear loads. Thermal ageing caused a decrease
tests are illustrated in Figure 5. The maximum load value in GIIC for both adhesives. Moreover, the increased adhesive
measured for each group of specimens gives a qualitative thickness led to the reduction in GIIC values of both adhe-
measure of the bonded joint performance as it represents the sives.
load at which crack initiation occurred. Moreover, the By using the experimentally measured values of GIC and
maximum load is of major importance for the aeronautic GIIC, the critical mixed mode fracture toughness SC of the
industry as it is used for designing bonded joints. specimens can be derived using the Strain Energy Density
Figure 6 compares the average GIC values of the speci- theory [16] through the critical mode I and mode II stress
mens tested. As can be seen, adhesive thickness has a con- intensity factors KIC and KIIC as mentioned earlier. This der-
tradictory effect on fracture toughness for the two adhesives: ivation is very important because it allows assessing the
positive for the Epibond 1590 A/B and negative for the effect of ageing on the fracture toughness of the joints in-
LMB. This is probably due to the differences in the interac- dependently of loading mode which varies according to
tion mechanisms between yielding and thickness occurring flight conditions.
in the two adhesives. Thermal ageing leads to a decrease in
toughness of the bonded joints, which is more significant
for the LMB. On the contrary, wet ageing leads to an in- 3 Effect of pre-bond contamination
crease in toughness of the bonded joints. This is due to plas-
ticization of the adhesive caused by the presence of water. It The physicochemical parameters that may influence fracture
is noted that larger exposure periods are expected to cause a toughness of bonded joints may be divided into the manu-
decrease in the toughness of the joints. A very interesting facturing-related parameters (pre-bond contamination) and
finding is that the bonded joints assembled with the LMB in-service-related parameters (after-bond contamination).
adhesive with the small thickness (0.5 mm) have in all cases Pre-bond contamination mainly affects the physicochemical
the highest fracture toughness. conditions of the substrate, thus affecting bonding quality
Figure 7 compares the average GIIC values of the speci- [17–25]. After-bond contamination mainly influences the
mens tested. The GIIC values of the LMB are much greater integrity of the adhesive as described in sect. 2.
Figure 5 Load displacement curves of mode I tests: (a) reference specimens, (b) thermally aged specimens, and (c) wet aged specimens.
6 Pantelakis S, et al. Sci China-Phys Mech Astron January (2014) Vol. 57 No. 1
The average values of GIC for the six different scenarios are
compared at the histogram of Figure 8. GIC values are
strongly affected by the maximum load. The poor curing led Figure 9 Schematic displays of joining profiles.
to a decrease of the GIC value by almost 95%; this finding
reveals the criticality of curing process in bonded joints.
The dramatic decrease in GIC is explained by the failure beam realized by means of a Pi-shaped profile is illustrated
mode of the poorly cured specimen in which a complete in Figure 10. Design of the multi-functional profiles, for
lack of cohesion is ascertained. Release agent and thermal example to ensure their integrity as well as the integrity of
degradation also decrease dramatically GIC of the joint by the bondline is still a major challenge 29. Important tools in
70% and 62%, respectively. Moisture and Skydrol have also the design of multifunctional profiles are the continuum
a considerable effect on the fracture toughness of the joints damage modeling technique [29,31–33], the cohesive zone
(a 25% and a 27% decrease in GIC, respectively). modeling technique [30] and Digital Image Correlation
[31,33].
In ref. [32], numerical design optimization of an NCF
4 Numerical design of joining profiles H-shaped joining profile for bonded joints was conducted
with respect to failure load for the H-tension (pull-out)
Realization of adhesively bonded joints requires in some load-case. In the following paragraphs the methodology and
cases redesign of the structural parts to be assembled as main numerical findings will be described briefly.
current designs were selected so as to implement bolted
connections. The main objective of the redesign of the 4.1 Geometry and materials
structural parts is the load to be transferred between the as-
sembled parts through shear stresses and not normal stresses. The initial geometry of the H-shaped multi-functional pro-
Therefore, large adhesive surfaces loaded in shear have to file is schematically shown in Figure 11(a). The profile is
be created. A very useful tool in the realization of bonded used to adhesively join two aluminum inserts. The aim of
joints is multifunctional profiles of different shapes which this work is to propose an optimal geometry which will give
act as joining elements between the assembled parts. The higher strength for the H-tension load-case, schematically
multifunctional profiles are made of textile composite mate- described in Figure 11(b). The H profile was made from the
rial and can be of different shapes as shown in Figure 9. An HTS/RTM6 NCF material [32]. For the adhesive, the EA
example of a bonded joint between a composite skin and a 9695 adhesive film is used. More details about the materials
Figure 10 Bonded joining of a composite skin with a composite beam by means of a Pi-shaped joining profile.
8 Pantelakis S, et al. Sci China-Phys Mech Astron January (2014) Vol. 57 No. 1
can be found in ref. [32]. The optimization module, integrated in the ANSYS© com-
mercial FE code was employed to perform optimization
4.2 Design optimization methodology [32]. The module employs three types of variables to char-
acterize the design process: the design variables, the state
The proposed design optimization methodology, combining variables and the objective function. These variables are
the method of progressive damage modeling with numerical represented by scalar parameters in the ANSYS© Parametric
optimization, comprises the following steps: Design Language [34].
(1) Characterization of the mechanical performance of
the NCF material using local homogenized progressive 4.5 Analysis of the reference geometry
damage modeling;
(2) Development of the global FE model of the multi- In developing the 3D FE model of the H-profile, the
functional profile; ANSYS© FE code was used. A generic view of the 3D FE
(3) Assignment of the mechanical properties of the RVE model can be seen in Figure 13. All components were mod-
to the elements of the FE model of the multi-functional pro- eled using SOLID185 element which is defined by 8 nodes
file and implementation of progressive damage modeling to and 3 degrees of freedom per node. Progressive damage
simulate the global mechanical performance of the joint; modeling on the bonded joint with the reference geometry
(4) Analysis of the reference geometry to assess strength of the H-profile is initially performed to predict strength and
and select the objective functions (critical stresses); identify the critical stresses that govern the main failure
(5) Decision on design variables, design constraints and mechanisms that cause final failure of the structural part.
state variables (dimensions of H, geometry constrains); Maximum values of these stresses correspond to the objec-
(6) Performing optimization; tive functions which are to be minimized. Consequently, the
correlation between objective functions and various dimen-
(7) Analysis of the optimal geometry.
sions of the H-profile is necessary. Dimensions with the
In the following sections, each of the above steps will be
stronger influence on the values of the objective functions
described shortly. More details can be found in ref. [26].
will serve as design variables in the optimization module. In
stresses, driving the main failure mechanism of the joint site aircraft structures: A review of scientific challenges and opportu-
(fiber failure at the longitudinal direction), are smaller and nities. Prog Aerospace Sci, 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paerosci.
2013.03.003
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