Comparisons of Linear and Nonlinear FEA of Adhesively Bonded Beams

The effect of boundary conditions on the stress distributions in single-lap adhesively bonded cantilevered beams has been investigated using the three-dimensional linear static and non-linear quasi-static finite element method. The displacement obtained from the linear static and the non-linear quasi-static analyses are compared under the same deformation scale factor for three typical boundary conditions. The analysis results indicate that there are significant differences between the linear static and non-linear quasi-static analyses only if there are significant bending effect on the bonded section. The bigger the bending effect on the bonded section, the bigger the difference between the linear static and non-linear quasi-static analyses.