Thermal behavior of DGEBA (Diglycidyl Ether of Bisphenol A) adhesives and its influence on the strength of joints

Adhesives, especially epoxies, are widely used as joints, repairs and corrosion protection in the petroleum onshore and offshore industry. Performance temperature is a key factor for such material. Mainly they are designed by the thermal properties but when they are in real service operation the behavior changes drastically. In this work, three different epoxy adhesives used in the offshore industry are characterized by DSC, DMA and TGA methods. The main objective is to verify if thermo mechanical tests on adhesives produces enough information to use in temperature service situation instead of test single lap joints (SLJ) at different temperatures. From the tests results it can be seen that adhesive SLJ should be tested in order to proper service design.