FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE INTERLAMINAR TENSILE TESTING OF ADHESIVELY BONDED COMPOSITES

Current methods for testing the interlaminar tensile strength of film adhesives bonded to composite laminate do not yield consistent failure locations. ASTM standards C297 [1] and D7291 [2] have been found to be challenging to achieve acceptable failure modes for testing labs. The development of a new test method inspired by ASTM C297 will be discussed. This research studied adhesive selection, surface bond preparation, and bond line control to determine the preferred procedure for testing the interlaminar tensile strength of film adhesives. These results suggest alternative ways to prepare metallic and composite surfaces for bond preparation, provide insight into the influence of bond line thickness on test performance, and identify additional work to refine this test method to provide more consistent failure locations.