Effects of Surface Microstructure on the Strength of Adhesively Bonded Structures

121 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002.The experimental investigation in the present research is focused on the influence of surface roughness on the fracture resistance of an aluminum-epoxy interface. A layered double cantilever beam (LDCB) specimen was chosen for this experiment. The LDCB specimen was debonded by peeling off the epoxy layer from the aluminum substrate using a steel wedge. Interfacial fracture energy was extracted from the debond length by developing a closed-form solution for the specimen geometry based on a "beam on an elastic foundation" model. The experimental observations established a direct relationship between the surface roughness of aluminum substrates and the fracture resistance of the aluminum-epoxy interface. This relationship provides guidance to tailor optimal surface pretreatments of aluminum substrate to improve interfacial adhesion performance.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD