Characteristics of interlaminar stresses for damages in adhesively-bonded composite single lap joints

In this paper three-dimensional non-linear finite element analyses are carried out to evaluate accurately the stresses over the different critical surfaces for adhesion failure, cohesion failure and delamination damages of an adhesively-bonded fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite single lap joint (SLJ) subjected to an in-plane loading. The top and bottom adherends of the SLJ are formed by eight layers of unidirectional graphite FRP composite and the material of the adhesive is epoxy. The out-of-plane stresses and their distribution over the critical surfaces are presented, and conclusions about the damages and failures for the adhesively-bonded composite SLJ are drawn.