Divers essais peuvent etre employes afin d'evaluer la resistance a la fracture des joints adhesifes. Generalement, ces essais sont symetriques: les substrats sont identiques. Nous avons utilise une version asymetrique, ou un adherend flexible est colle a aderend rigide. Nous discutons ici du comportement d'un joint d'adhesion variable. Des resultats assez surprenants font le sujet prinicpal de cet article.

This paper describes an experimental arrangement to evaluate stress/strain fields in the process zone of asymmetric adhesively bonded joints. A transparent polycarbonate flexible beam was bonded to an aluminium alloy rigid block with an epoxy adhesive in a Single Cantilever Beam (SCB) configuration. The flexible adherend was loaded in the direction parallel to the initial crack front at constant rate. To monitor strains induced...

Adhesive bonding is now commonly used in aircraft, cars, boats, etc. In these applications, thin panels are often bonded. In such thin structures, heterogeneous mechanical loading along the bondline edge (or potential crack front), is likely to arise due to 3D structural effects. The crack front and its vicinity is a special region, in that it is where structural properties of the adherend material meet those of the adhesive (discontinuity)....

Slow crack propagation in adhesive bonded joints has been characterised using an asymmetric wedge test. Crack position was evaluated from strain gauge measurements, both in the debonded partof the joint and in the bonded zone. Test temperature was changed during loading, giving insight into bond evolution. The technique allows accurate, and virtually continuous, determination of crack position to be made, and therefore the evaluation...

The effects of variability of intrinsic adhesion within a joint have been studied using a single cantilever beam (SCB) test. Fracture energy was found not to be a simple function of relative areas of 2 surface pre-treatments: a 'weak' zone decreased strength more than expected from simple, additive considerations. By severing the adhesive along the strong-weak transition, fracture energy increased.The prior antagonist effect appears...