ENTRELAZAMIENTO CUÁNTICO

Since the water contact angle revealed an essentially hydrophobic behavior, additional investigations were carried out to assess the ability of the selected adhesive to interlock with the treated sur-faces. It is indeed recognized that measurements of water contact angle by themselves do not account for additional important features of actual bonding procedures. For instance, it should be noted that the liquid epoxy adhesive has a lower surface tension compared to that of water; as a result, it may not be able to properly fill surface asperities. On the other hand, previous works have shown that sur-face wetting of the epoxy can be enhanced by sursur-face roughness and change in surface chemistry, because of capillarity channeling and surface oxidation, respectively [53]. In order to assess whether or not the gap-filling capabilities of the adhesive may adversely affect the outcome of the present study, the metal/epoxy interfaces were observed using optical microscopy. To this purpose, ad-hoc samples were fabricated and then cut to display the related interfaces. Sam-ple fabrication was executed using essentially the same procedures described in the previous chapter for the single-lap shear joints. Fig-ure 4.8 [64] illustrates (a) AA6082-T4/epoxy and (b) AISI304/epoxy interfaces, respectively. Figure 4.8(a) testifies that there is little or no indication of mechanical keying in the aluminum joints, and that surface waviness is limited. This waviness is however compatible with the value Sk found in Fig.4.1(a) above 12W .

Hence, it is not expected that mechanical keying will play a major role in determining the overall strength of these joints. On the other hand, surface patterns are quite apparent on the steel substrates, see for instance the micron sized pyramidlike structure in Fig.4.8(b). The adhesive seems to be able to fill the gaps be-tween these micro-structures, although this information can only be confirmed by the outcome of the experimental tests where a larger interfacial area will be probed. It is also noted that the gap-filling capabilities of the adhesive were presumably enhanced thanks to the heat-assisted joint curing employed during fabrication, which lowers viscosity before polymerization favoring adhesive penetration inside the gaps. Indeed, the work reported in ref [75], which used the same

Figure 4.8: Cross-sectional views of the (a) aluminum/epoxy and (b) steel/epoxy interface (both treated at 18W), showing details of the morphological features interlocking with the epoxy adhesive.

[64]

kind of adhesive, showed that cold curing could lead to an imper-fect surface wetting. This problem occurs especially in presence of complex surface morphologies, since the adhesive may not fully pen-etrate the cavities created by the process and gels before a complete penetration.

Mechanical testing results

In this work of thesis, the analysis around the effect of low power pulsed laser treatment has been focused in three directions: (i) the evaluation of two different material, in this case, austenitic stain-less steel AISI304 and AA6082-T4 aluminum alloy; (ii) analysis of joint strength by using the Single Lap Shear (SLS) tests and the Thick Adherend Shear Tests (TAST); (iii) analysis and comparison of mode I fracture toughness of aluminum/epoxy joints by mean of Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) tests. For the sake of compar-ison, all laser ablated specimens has been compared with simple degreased and grit blasted adhesive joints.

5.1 Single Lap Shear tests

Failure loads of the single-lap aluminum/epoxy joints are reported in the column bars in Fig.5.1, where laser ablated aluminum joints are compared to simply degreased and grit-blasted ones [64]. Laser ablation consistently improved the strength of the joint with respect to simple degreasing, indeed a +100% increase was observed. The increased strength of aluminum alloy/epoxy joints might be related to the modification of the surface oxide layer which led to a better adhesive–substrate chemical interaction. This is in agreement with recent research carried out on the subject, where the oxide layer of

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aluminum substrates for adhesive bonding was optimized by fiber laser ablation [66] or solid state laser ablation assisted by a process gas [67]. Anyway, surface oxidation might also have an adverse effect on the strength, since the oxide particles showed in the previous SEM analysis were weakly bonded to the Al substrates and could be easily detached under load.

SLJ(degreased) SLJ(grit blasted) SLJ(laser ablated) 0

5 10 15 20

FailureShearStress[MPa]

AA 6082-T4 SLJ

Figure 5.1: Failure shear stress for SLS aluminum/epoxy joints. [64]

On the other hand, steel/epoxy joints, showed a +25% improve-ment in strength with respect to simple degreasing as reported in Fig.5.3 [64]. It was not observed a sensible increase in the failure load for steel samples and it is, thus, apparent that a simple degreas-ing of steel surface enabled by itself a good adhesion strength. This point was also discussed in previous works [3, 2]. It is also worth not-ing that ablation did not greatly modify surface chemistry of steel substrates, it is then speculated that the +25% increase is mostly related to the increased surface roughness.

SEM images of typical fractured surfaces are reported in Fig.5.2 [64]. It is shown that laser ablation did not induce mechanical in-terlocking on aluminum alloy/epoxy joints. Indeed failure surfaces

Figure 5.2: Cross-sectional views of the (a) aluminum/epoxy and (b) steel/epoxy interface (both treated at 18W), showing details of the morphological features interlocking with the epoxy adhesive.

[64]

SLJ(degreased) SLJ(grit blasted) SLJ(laser ablated) 0

5 10 15 20 25

FailureShearStress[MPa]

AISI304 SLJ

Figure 5.3: Failure shear stress for SLS stainless steel/epoxy joints.

[64]

display a bare aluminum alloy substrate. On the other hand, failed stainless steel/epoxy joints showed some degree of mechanical in-terlocking, which was also expected based on the observation made earlier in the paper. However, voids are also shown, thereby lead-ing to the conclusion that the filllead-ing of surface asperities was not always achieved throughout the interface of the sample. This may also explain the reduced increase in strength for that type of joints.