Behaviour of cohesive elements in a 3D Aluminum adhesively bonded double cantilever beam (DCB).

Adhesive bonded joints have shown major advantages in the aerospace industry over traditional mechanical bonding methods. In fact, these types of joints make it possible to reduce the overall dimensions structural weight and improve the fatigue life characteristics, thanks to the reduction of stress concentrations due to uniform distribution of stresses. In addition, they offer a smooth exterior finish, sealed surfaces and many other benefits. One of the main concerns with these joints is, however, their characterization under fatigue loading, i.e. crack growth. In this study, for the behavior of aluminum cohesive elements glued double cantilever beams (DCB) under quasi-static loading were investigated. Cohesive elements were used to shape the adhesive layer. The installation was designed in Abaqus to apply a quasi-static load to the DCB specimen and the displacement and load were recorded during the test. The cohesive zone model was used to simulate the behavior of the adhesive layer charging. The results showed that the cohesive elements provide good sealing behavior of the adhesive layer and the expected load-displacement curve reflects good performance with the experimental data. The results suggest that cohesive elements can be used to accurately model the behavior of bonded structures under quasi-static loading.