Strength of profile-adhesive joints

The current article presents an attempt to describe the strength of profile-adhesive joints. Its main objective was to develop mathematical models describing phenomena occurring in bent mortise joints prevalent in constructions of skeleton furniture, but also to determine factors influencing the strength of profile-adhesive joints. The presented cases of gluing of a mortise joint reveal that mutual interactions of compressed wood surfaces influence significantly the strength of the developed node. In extreme cases, when a glue bond fails to form on surfaces of elements, the strength of the joint will depend only on the compression strength of wood. That is why, despite the impairment of the adhesive bond, the construction will still be able to carry considerable outside loads. However, the best situation is when well fitted elements of the joint, compressing one another, reduce stresses in the glue bond and increase its strength above the value of outside loads exceeding greatly the shear strength of the glue.