VISCOELASTIC ANALYSIS OF ADHESIVELY BONDED JOINTS

Abstract

A direct formulation for the viscoelastic analysis of adhesively bonded joints using finite element method is presented. A six-noded quadratic isoparametric element is developed. Two variations for the adhesive layer element are presented. Hereditary integrals are used to represent the stress-strain relations. Relaxation modulus, either experimentally obtained or theoretically generated, can be directly used. Memory load storage/use is minim&d using Prony series for the relaxation modulus. A usual eight-noded quadratic isoparametric plane strain element is used to idealise the adherends. As the adhesive layer element is a curved one it can be effectively employed for the analysis of curved adhesive-bonded joints. It is seen from the results that the stress distributions in the joints are accurately determined using both the adhesive layer element formulations. As the element formulation 1 is stiff and formulation 2 is Rexible, the average of these solutions using moderate mesh is an accurate solution for the given configuration.