Dynamic Fracture Analysis of Adhesively Bonded Joints Using Explicit Methods

Dynamic fracture tests of adhesively bonded double-cantilever beams subjected to impact loading from a falling wedge in a drop-tower fixture are presented. Dynamic simulations of the fracture tests are performed using the explicit method available in the commercial software LS-DYNA. A cohesive zone model for fracture of the adhesive is implemented as a user-defined material in LS-DYNA. Simulations of the double-cantilever beams with aluminum adherends correlated very well with the test data. To achieve good correlation with the test for the double-cantilever beams with composite adherends, the measured displacement history of the tip of the adherend in contact with the failing wedge had to be implemented as a boundary condition in the simulation.