Evaluation of an elastic meshless formulation to adhesive joints’ strength prediction against established methods

Adhesive joints are widely used in the production of goods, mainly in the transport industry. However, their industrial applications often have non-standard complex shapes. Computer simulation, like the finite element method (FEM), is widely used for their analysis but limitations still exist. Meshless methods have been in development and offer an option to overcome some limitations of the FEM; however, these are still in development. In this work, a recent meshless method, the NNRPIM, has been applied to the analysis of adhesive joints. First, experimental data corresponding to four overlap lengths and three different adhesives were measured, as a benchmark. Afterwards, joint strength was analytically obtained as a second benchmark. Then, all the joint geometries were simulated utilising the FEM and NNRPIM methodologies, joint strengths were calculated from those simulations. Finally, the results were compared against the first and second benchmarks. Meshless method proved to be a good alternative to the FEM, providing similar strength prediction with differences less than 3% between them. Moreover, the stress distribution curves were compared, differences of 5% in the peak shear stresses were found. In conclusion, the NNRPIM provides accurate results and could be utilised for further study of adhesively-bonded joints.