Strength of Composite Single-Lap Bonded Joints with Various Manufacturing Processes for Aircraft Application

Failure strengths of composite single-lap adhesive joints were investigated with various parameters such as manufacturing method, overlap length and adherend thickness. A total of 335 single-lap joint specimens were tested under tension. Specimens were fabricated with 4 different manufacturing processes; cocuring without and with adhesive, secondary bonding and co-bonding. Each manufacturing process has 5 different overlap lengths and 4 different thicknesses, respectively. As expected, failure strength is higher in thicker adherend joints and lower in larger overlap length specimens. Interesting result is that the secondary bonded joints show the higher strength than the cobonded and cocured joints with adhesive, and give close or even higher strength compared with non-adhesive cocured case.