Numerical analysis of adhesively bonded T-joints with structural sandwiches and study of design parameters

Adhesively bonded T-joints are extensively used in assembling sandwich structures. The advantage of adhesive bonded joints over bolted or riveted joints is that the use of fastener holes in mechanical joints inherently results in micro and local damages to the composite laminate during their fabrication. One type of adhesive joint in such structures is the T-joint between sandwich panels. The aim of this research paper is to study, by numerical analysis, the effect of fillet geometry and core material of sandwich panels on the performance of T-joints. The base angle of the core triangle (fillet) is the most important geometry parameter of the triangular T-joint. Nine geometrical models with different base angles of the core triangle are made to investigate the effect of the base angle on the performance of the 1-joints. It should be mentioned that the base angle in the triangular foam is changed, so that the final volume of the filler is kept constant in all the cases. Different foams with different stiffness are used to model the core of the panels to study the effect of the core material of sandwich panels. To model the adhesive between joint components, contact elements and cohesive zone material models are used. Therefore, failure of adhesive and separation of joint elements can be modeled. Damage and core shear failure of the base panel are modeled by using a written macro-code in the ANSYS finite element method (FEM) program. The ultimate strength of the joint in each case is calculated by modeling adhesive failure and core shear failure of the sandwich panels. Finally, the results of FEM are validated by experimental results available in the literature. In general, the failure load predicted by the FEM is within 5% of the experimental results. The best angle of the core triangle was found to be 45 degrees. Also, the results showed that by changing the core material of the sandwich panel, the joint failure load is also changed. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.