Performance Enhancement of Epoxy‐Adhesive Co‐Cured Joints With GPTMS ‐Modified Stainless Steel Mesh: A Comparative Study of Interleaved and Conventional Reinforcements

ABSTRACT Adhesive bonding creates strong, lightweight, and durable connections in the automotive and aerospace industries. The current study aims to enhance the shear and vibrational properties of single lap joints (SLJ) by incorporating various types of reinforcements, such as Mesh‐reinforced SLJ (MSLJ), Interleaved Mesh SLJ (IMSLJ), GPTMS‐treated Mesh SLJ (GMSLJ), and GPTMS‐treated Interleaved Mesh SLJ (GIMSLJ), with pure epoxy adhesive. The present study compares the performance of untreated stainless steel 304 wire mesh (SS 304) SLJ with those treated with 3‐Glycidyloxypropyl‐trimethoxysilane (GPTMS) through conventional methods (over the adhesive layer) and interleaved approaches. The results indicate that GIMSLJ and GMSLJ achieved improvements in shear strength of 17.74% and 9.43%, respectively, compared to MSLJ. Furthermore, the natural frequencies measured for GIMSLJ and GMSLJ were recorded at 62.3 and 58.9 Hz, both of which were higher than those of the other joints tested. An ANOVA analysis confirmed that various reinforcement SLJ significantly impacts shear and vibrational performance ( p < 0.05).