Structural Assessment via FEA of Bonded Steel ...

This paper presents a numerical study using FEM of adhesively bonded steel beams under three point bending. Previous studies done by Hashim had examined the behavior of pure adhesive layers experimentally and by FEM, and it was found that the FE analysis showed a good accuracy with respect to the experimental test which was adopted to minimize the efforts and the cost. Accordingly, in the present analysis using FEM was the major technique to investigate the possibility of improving the properties of the adhesive layers by enhancement using fillers like fiber reinforcements. Therefore, the authors focused on the improvement of the characteristics of the reinforced adhesive layers in order to improve the mechanical response of the adhesively bonded beam. To elucidate the effectiveness of the advantages of the fiber reinforcement and its impact on the whole bonded structure behavior, interface coefficient for the adhesive layer was estimated for both stresses and deflections and compared for both bonded and solid beams (welded). Due to complication of studying the welded structures because of the residual and thermal stresses, a comparison by considering the welded beams as solid one for simplicity is proposed. The numerical simulations were compared with classical beam theory while sandwich theory was applied to the bonded beams as an analytical investigation. As a result of the study, it was found that by reinforcing the adhesive layer using fiber fillers, the flexural stiffness of the bonded beam increased, and as a consequence the bending and the shear stresses are decreased.