A novel dissimilar single-lap joint with interfacial stiffness improvement

The increased use of hybrid joints such as bonding composites to metals in aerospace, hull, civil and automotive structures in the past decades makes it essential to find methods to improve the performance of the joints. This study presents both experimental and numerical investigations into a novel dissimilar single-lap joint (SLJ) with interfacial stiffness improvement. The main objective of this research is to minimise the peak stress concentration by reinforcing the lower stiffness adherend’s interface through embedding discrete AL patches to increase the performance of the dissimilar single-lap joint with epoxy adhesive. Finite element models (FEA) were developed in Abaqus® software to analyse the effects of thickness and length of the patches, and the failure mechanism due to the reinforcement. Dissimilar single lap joints with different configurations were fabricated and tested using single lap shear tests to validate the numerical analysis. Both the experimental and numerical results show that the strength of the reinforced joint is significantly enhanced by using the aluminium patches.