Numerical investigation on novel method for adhesively bonded t-joint between aluminum and sandwich panel

A common way to join dissimilar materials in industrial applications is to use adhesives. Marine industries use this kind of joints for attaching main hull to superstructure of the ships. Most previous researches have focused on composite-composite joints, while a few of them are devoted to aluminum- sandwich panel joints. This study focuses on the numerical static strength analysis of a typical aluminum-sandwich panel T-joints and improving its strength through a novel design. The results of numerical analyses are in a good agreement with those of the experimental tests and confirm the accuracy of numerical analyses. In analyzing the adhesive between joint elements, contact elements and cohesive zone model (CZM) in ANSYS as well as nonlinear analysis is used. Results show that change in joint geometry considered in this paper, caused a 7.25% increase in vertical failure load of the joint. This increase in strength of joint attained in a situation that because of the merging of the joined parts, the process of construction became easier