Influence of Edge-Boundaries on the Cohesive Behaviour of an Adhesive Layer

In comparison with other adhesives e.g. epoxies, polyurethane adhesives (PUR) are soft. In automotive applications, the thickness of PUR-adhesive layers is between about 2 to 5 mm. Since these adhesives cure by moisture, the width of the joints is limited. Often, the width is only marginally larger than the thickness of the layer. In numerical FE-simulations it is now common to represent epoxy adhesive layers by cohesive elements. With this model, both stress distribution and fracture can be modelled using mesh sizes that allows for large-scale analyses. Material properties are usually the result from experiments with coupon type specimens, e.g. the double cantilever beam specimen (DCB). With PUR-adhesives this approach is problematic. The adhesive is very flexible and effects from the edge-boundaries cannot be ignored. In order to study the influence of the edge-boundaries in peel loading, experiments with the DCB-specimens are performed. Specimens with a layer thickness of 3 mm and three different widths between 10.6 mm to 40.6 mm are studied. The PUR-adhesive SikaFlex-UHM is used. All the experiments are performed at a constant loading rate. The cohesive law is measured. The experimental results show that the maximum peel stress is increasing with an increasing width of the specimen, i.e. when the influences from the edges decrease. When the width increases from 10.6 mm to 40.6 mm, the maximum evaluated peak stress increases from about 5 MPa to about 7 MPa. From visual inspections during the experiments it is conjectured that crack growth starts with voids initiating inside the adhesive. At a critical point, the voids rapidly reach the surface and crack growth starts.