Analysis of tongue and groove joints for thick laminates

A finite element evaluation of local stresses in the adhesive and adherends is presented for a tongue-and-groove joint of a homogenized thick composite laminate to steel plate. The quasi-isotropic laminate is made of glass fabric/vinyl ester plies. Most results are obtained for elastic response of the Dexter-Hysol 9338 adhesive that was used in recent experiments (Compos Sci Technol 61 (2001) 1123–1142). A nonlinearly viscoelastic adhesive is also considered, with illustrative properties taken from experiments on the FM-73 system. Both in-plane force resultants and out-of-plane moments are included in the applied loads. Scaling of the elastic results with regard to plate thickness shows that for given levels of overall stresses applied to the adherend plates, the stresses supported by the adhesive do not depend on plate thickness. Adhesive stress relaxation is shown to be relatively small, and occurring in a short time period. q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.