| Public Description | Studies show that approximately 70% of structure failures start in joints. Adhesively bonded joints are of great value to the aerospace industry because of their high strength-to-weight ratio but are not without their disadvantages. It is hard to assure the durability and load bearing strength of a bonded joint, so a mechanical fastener can be added for fail-safe assurance. These fasteners don’t commonly participate in load bearing until the adhesive bond has deteriorated. Even with the added fasteners, the joints’ integrity is not assured.
Inventors at Purdue have developed a new hybrid joint which fully utilizes the load bearing strength of both the adhesive bond and mechanical fasteners. This design has an increased joint strength of 70-80% over existing hybrid joints, with the potential for further optimization of up to 100% joint strength increase all-the-while maintaining fail-safe characteristics of hybrid joints. |