Novel Mechanical Characterization Method Applied to Non-Structural Adhesives: Adherend Material Sensitivity

Abstract

Adhesives are more relevant in the industrial world each day, and the need for fast, simple, and cheap mechanical characterization techniques is urgent. During the following work, a novel specimen that can perform four different tests in only one go, is used to numerically study the effect of downgrading the properties of the substrate materials allowing higher sensitivity when characterizing non-structural adhesives. This study showed that numerically the load displacement curves of fracture tests are the most influenced ones, but the actual change in the fracture toughness from steel to aluminum substrates is negligible for the mode I loading and penalizing for the mode II loading.