FEM Stress Analysis and Strength Prediction of Stepped-Lap Adhesive Joints of Similar Hollow Cylinders Under Static Tensile Loadings

This paper deals with an FEM stress analysis of stepped-lap adhesive joints of similar hollow cylinders under static tensile loadings. The effects of Young’s modulus ratio between the adherends and adhesive, the thickness of the adhesive, scarf angle, the number of steps, and singular stress on the interface stress distributions are calculated using FEM. The code of FEM employed is ANSYS. The singular stress is found to occur at the edge of the interfaces. The singular stress at the inside edge is larger than that at the outside edge. It is shown that the maximum principal stress at the edge of the interface decreases as Young’s modulus ratio between the adherend and the adhesive and the adhesive thickness decreases while it decreases as the number of steps increases. Using the obtained interface stress distribution, we can predict the joint strength. For verification of the strength prediction, experiments to measure the joint strength were carried out. The numerical results of the joint strength are in a fairly good agreement with the experimental results.