Experimental and analytical verification of the characteristics of shear fatigue failure in the adhesive interface of porous foam materials

In the past, many studies have been conducted to examine the effect of static load and fatigue load on the adhesive interface between two different materials or the same materials, but little research has been done on porous materials. Thus, this study was carried out to examine the effect of fatigue load on the adhesive interface formed by aluminum foam, which exhibits porous characteristics. For the experiment, five specimens were fabricated with the thicknesses varied in increments of 10 mm from 25 mm to 65 mm. The aluminum foam was bonded using the single-lap method, and MTS landmark was used to conduct the fatigue experiment. Based on the initial static experiment, the maximum reaction force at which total failure occurred in the adhesive interface was obtained, and fatigue load was applied on the lower load cell in the 10 Hz sine graph form. The results of the experiment showed that for all five of the specimens, the adhesive strength of the adhesive agent was maintained in the adhesive interface during the 5000 cycle of the fatigue load. Also, based on the correlation between displacement and repeated load cycles, it was discovered that the adhesive interface underwent total failure after a sharp displacement in the interface in all five cases when the load was repeated for more than 5000 cycles In addition, a numerical analysis was performed based on the experimental results, and the stress distribution was visualized. The numerical analysis results showed similar tendencies as the experimental results, which confirmed the reliability of the analysis results. Thus, it was deemed that it would be possible to analyze the fatigue failure behavior of actual, bonded structures made of a porous material based on the experimental and numerical analysis results obtained through this study.