Two-dimensional stress analysis of adhesive butt joints subjected to cleavage loads

This paper deals with the two-dimensional stress analysis of adhesive butt joints subjected to cleavage loads. The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the establishment of fracture criteria of adhesive joints. Similar adherends and an adhesive bond are replaced with finite strips in the analysis. Stress distributions in adhesive joints are analysed using the two-dimensional theory of elasticity. The effects of the ratio of Young's modulus of adherends to that of an adhesive and the thickness of the adhesive bonds on the stress distributions are shown by numerical calculations. For verification, strains produced on adherends are experimentally measured and a photoelastic experiment is carried out. The analytical results are in fairly good agreement with experiment.