S:T_UDIES ON ADHESIVE JOINING OF FERROUS AND • NONFERROUS SHEETS USING PARTICULATE COMPOSITE ADHESIVE

Abstract

Considering the methods for joining materials there are many advantages that engineering adhesives can offer, compared to the more traditional methods of joining. Many types of adhesives are used for joining, epoxy based adhesives are the fore runners in this method of joining structural materials. The brittle nature of these epoxy based adhesive, made researchers to improve the properties of these adhesives by modifying these epoxy adhesive by addition of fillers. In this present investigation, a commercially used epoxy adhesive is taken as the matrix, with different metal and metal oxide powders as fillers. Commercially available 2 mm thick, aluminium strips and mild steel strips are used as substrates in this study. By varying the size and amount of the fillers materials, the effect different metal and metal oxide powders on the strength properties of have been studied. This study also analyses the effect of different pretreatments (mechanical & chemical) of aluminium substrates. Accelerated aging test is also conducted for the prepared joints to study the durability of the joints with various particulate composite adhesive joints and conventional adhesive joints. From the study, it has been observed that composite adhesive having 15 wt% of 1 micron aluminium particulates has shown highest strength. The addition of nano particles also enhanced the strength. properties. The chemically treated aluminium substrate joints have shown enhanced corrosion resistance than mechanically polished aluminium substrates, but the strength of these chemically pretreated joints have comparatively lower strength than mechanically pretreated joints.