In situ determination of adhesive shear moduli using strain gages

A new, convenient and cost-effective method of determining in situ adhesive shear moduli using strain gages is proposed and evaluated. Thick-adherend lap shear specimens with stacked gage rosettes at the center of the bond line are loaded in tension for adhesive shear strain measurement. Experimental and numerical results indicate that the test specimen has a nonuniform adhesive shear stress (or strain) distribution in the test section and that this distribution (except at the center point of the bond line) is greatly affected by load eccentricity. In addition to the nonuniformity in the shear stress distribution, the issue of material nonhomogeneity in the gage-covered region affects the strain gage measurement. By taking into account these two issues and assuming linear-elastic behavior, two approaches for converting the gage-measured shear strain into the adhesive shear strain are developed and verified by experiment. It is shown that the strain gage measurement associated with either of two conversion techniques can determine the in situ adhesive shear moduli, which are comparable with moiré experiment and KGR-1 extensometer measurements.