Influence of the temperature on the fracture energy of a methacrylate adhesive for mining applications

Background The addition of new material technologies in mining, energy, construction and aerospace industry, among others, have requested the concentration of several researches to guide and enhance the implementation of the same. Due to the development of these new materials, a number of researches have been developed to improve the materials adhesion, which traditionally use bolted or riveted joints, whose solutions may bring some disadvantages such as stress concentration. Structural adhesives are an alternative that seeks to avoid these problems. Adhesive joints have strength and stiffness properties superior to mechanically-fastened joints since they evenly distribute the resulting load avoiding stress concentrations [1, 2]. These joints also provide other benefits, such as high fatigue strength, the possibility of maintaining the integrity of the substrates, no corrosion and minimum difference due to thermal expansion of the adhesive [3]. The knowledge of mechanical properties and fracture modes of an adhesive allows us to define failure mechanisms that may occur in specific load conditions and Abstract