Stress-Function Variational Method for Stress Analysis of Adhesively Bonded Joints

Abstract

Recently, adhesively bonded joints (ABJs) has found more rapidly increasing applications in aerospace and aeronautical structures, ground vehicles, and flexible electronics than mechanical fastening and welding technologies. However, outstanding issues still exist. This work was to develop a systematic semi-analytic method for accurate prediction of the interfacial shear and normal stresses of ABJs. Two unknown shear and peeling stress functions at each interface was first introduced in formulation, which satisfies all the traction boundary conditions. A set of governing ordinary differential equations (ODEs) was determined via triggering the theorem of minimum complimentary strain energy. Matlab® code was programmed to execute the proposed method. Furthermore, the present method was validated by finite element method and compared with those models in the literature. The present method is applicable for convenient scaling analysis and optimal design of ABJs and other types of ABJs such as adhesively bonded tubular and composite joints, etc.