Issue 31

R.D.S.G. Campilho et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 31 (2015) 1-12; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.31.01 3 for the matrix material on account of the good mechanical (strength and stiffness) and toughness properties, and also because of the superior wetting characteristics on natural fibres [17]. The epoxy resin type SR 1500 and SD 2505 hardener from Sicomin Epoxy Systems were used. The matrix properties, as specified by the manufacturer, are as follows: E =3.1 GPa,  f =74 MPa, strain at maximum load  m =4.4% and  f =6.0%. The jute-epoxy composite was composed by 30% of jute fabric (by weight) and gave the following properties in tensile testing: E =5.7 GPa and  f =124.3 MPa. For configurations 2 and 3, the aluminium adherends were cut from a high strength aluminium alloy sheet (AA6082 T651). Configuration Adherends Adhesive 1 Jute-epoxy composite SikaForce ® 7888 2 Aluminium SikaForce ® 7888 3 Aluminium SikaForce ® 7752-L60 Table 1 : Configurations tested to measure G n c . This material was characterized in bulk tension in previous works by the authors [18] using dogbone specimens and the following mechanical properties were obtained: E =70.07±0.83 GPa, tensile yield stress (  y ) of 261.67±7.65 MPa, ultimate tensile stress (  f ) of 324±0.16 MPa and elongation (  f ) of 21.70±4.24%. Configurations 1 and 2 used the polyurethane adhesive SikaForce ® 7888, which was characterized in the work of Neto et al. [19] by bulk tensile tests for the determination of E ,  f and  f , and DCB and ENF tests to define the values of G n c and G s c , respectively. The bulk characterization was performed as specified in the EN ISO 527-2 standard [20]. The obtained results gave E =1.89±0.81 GPa,  f =28.60±2.0 MPa,  f =43.0±0.6 %, G n c =0.7023±0.1233 N/mm and G s c =8.721±0.792 N/mm. Configuration 3 used a novel polyurethane structural adhesive, SikaForce ® 7752-L60. This is a two-part adhesive, and it consists of a filled Polyol based resin and an Isocyanate based hardener. It is characterized by a room temperature cure, high impact resistance and flexibility at low temperatures, having a tensile strength of approximately 10 MPa and tensile failure strain of 25% (manufacturer’s values). Figure 1 : Geometry and characteristic dimensions of the DCB specimens. Configuration L (mm) a 0 (mm) h (mm) B (mm) t A (mm) 1 160 50 5 15 1 2 160 40 1, 2, 3 and 4 25 1 3 160 55 3 25 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 Table 2 : Dimensions of the three joint configurations. Joint geometries The geometry of the DCB specimens is shown in Fig. 1. The characteristic dimensions are the total length ( L ), initial crack length ( a 0 ), h , width ( B ) and t A . The chosen values for each joint configuration are presented in Tab. 2. Some dimensions differ between configurations, but these do not affect the G n c measurement. The joints for configuration 1 considered jute-epoxy composites as adherends, consisting of 8 stacked weave plies with a fibre volume fraction of approximately