On the effect of adhesive thickness on mode I fracture energy-an experimental and modelling study using a trapezoidal cohesive zone model

In this paper, a combined experimental-numerical method was proposed to study the effect of adhesive thickness on mode I fracture energy of the adhesive layer, using Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) testing and Cohesive Zone Modelling (CZM). A Trapezoidal Cohesive Zone Model (TCZM) was introduced in tabular form into commercial Finite Element (FE) package to simulate the crack propagation behaviour in the adhesive layer and include the ductile characteristics of the selected adhesive. In order to overcome the difficulty in the accurate monitoring and measurement of crack length during loading, the Compliance-Based Beam Method (CBBM) was adopted to deduce the mode I strain energy release rate data. The load-displacement curve, Resistance curve (R curve), and mode I fracture energy data obtained from both experiment and simulation were analysed to validate the established FE model. It was observed that adhesive thickness has a significant influence on the ductile fracture behaviour of adhesive under mode I loading. The mode I fracture energy increases initially, and then decreases with the increase of adhesive layer thickness in the selected thickness range, while obvious transition was also observed in the perspective of micro-scale failure mechanism of the fracture surface through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).