Testing and simulation of mixed adhesive joints for aerospace applications

An important aerospace application of adhesives is in heat shields, bonded with room temperature vulcanizing silicone adhesive, which has high temperature resistance but low strength. Previous works proposed mixed adhesive joints as a solution and an investigation of this technique was performed. Three adhesive joint configurations were tested, including a mixed joint. The aim of the research was to simulate the load on a heat shield and predict the joint strength. Ceramic properties were obtained with an inverse method. There was a good agreement between experimental and numerical data, showing that this technique could be used for prediction and optimization.