Yield behavior of rubber-modified epoxy adhesives under multiaxial stress conditions

In rubber-modified epoxy resins, a damage zone is generated in the vicinity of the crack tip due to the cavitation of rubber particles, which improves fracture toughness dramatically. Hence, in evaluating the stress distribution in adhesive joints with rubber-modified adhesives, the void formation and growth should be taken into account. In most studies, however, the adhesive layer is still considered as a continuum material governed by the von Mises yield criterion. For many ductile materials, Gurson's model is used for the stress analysis, in which the void formation and growth is taken into account. In a previous study, using adhesively bonded scarf and torsional butt joints, the effect of stress triaxiality on the yield stress in the adhesive layer was investigated. In this study, these experimentally-obtained yield stresses were compared with those obtained by a finite element method, where Gurson's constitutive equations were applied to the adhesive layer. As a result, the calculated yield stresses agreed well with the experimentally-obtained yield stresses. This indicates that Gurson's model is a useful tool for estimating stress distributions in adhesive joints with rubber-modified adhesives.