| Abstract: | The fracture toughness of unmodified, glass-bead-reinforced and CNBR-modified epoxy adhesives under mode I loading is not improved by acid surface treatment of steel adherends since cohesive failure always occurs for all adhesives with or without acid surface treatment. On the other hand, the fatigue crack growth resistance greatly increases due to acid surface treatment of steel adherends. Especially, the threshold dramatically increases. The crack grows cohesively at all stages of crack velocity for DCB specimens treated with acids while it grows at the interface between the adherend and the adhesive layer for the specimens whose polished surface of adherends is only decreased with solvent. An optical microscope observation revealed that adherend surfaces treated with acids were rougher than ones without acid treatment, although XPS examination for the surfaces did not show significant difference in their chemical elements among the specimens with and without acid treatment. |
