A STUDY OF THE CURE OF ADHESIVES USING DYNAMIC-MECHANICAL ANALYSIS

Adhesives are being used extensively in fabrication as they offer many advantages over standard joining methods. As the adhesive forms an in tegral part of the structure, it is necessary to fully understand the initial mechanical properties of the material and how these change wit h ageing. Formal testing of materials often involves a considerable nu mber of tensile tests. These are not only expensive but time consuming . One method of speeding up the process is to study the small strain m echanical properties of materials and therefore avoid the statistical uncertainty involved in fracture tests. The aim of this paper is to sh ow how the technique of dynamic mechanical spectrometry can be applied to the study of adhesives and adhesive joints.