High-performance adhesive systems for polymer composite bonding applications

Adhesive films are utilized for polymeric composite bonding in numerous high-performance products including aerospace structures. These films must provide high bond strengths over the life-cycle of the part while not compromising the thermal or mechanical performance of the overall system. Currently, epoxy materials are most often employed in commercial adhesive films because of their versatility, cost, processing characteristics, and performance. However, there still exists a desire to improve these materials so that highly robust systems capable of optimized thermal, mechanical, and fracture resistance properties can be realized. In order to create these improved systems, a better understanding of the fundamental characteristics important in adhesion between dissimilar resin systems is needed. The goal of this research was to provide a means for obtaining this knowledge using an engineering approach. A methodology was developed by which model adhesive systems could be designed to explore processing-structure-property relationships. These model systems were designed to be characteristically similar and not chemically identical to commercial adhesive films. The methodology included a simulation engineering step to characterize the commercial product and develop the model system and a re-engineering step that occurs with the material manufacturer and customer to produce an improved product. The methodology was used to explore several issues for toughened epoxy adhesives including the adducting influence on performance, flexibilized liquid elastomer content importance, the relation between elastomer dispersed phase conversion and properties, the feasibility and performance of hybrid toughened resins, and the microcracking behavior of layered composite materials. Collectively, this research created a process that was applied to explore and identify important material parameters and provided information that can be used to design improved film adhesives.