Construction and characterization of chemically joined stainless steel/E-glass composite sections

摘要

Silane-based chemistries on stainless steel substrates have been investigated to join them to E-glass composite sections for future shipbuilding applications. The joints were bonded using the Hysol EA9394 adhesive. The joints are characterized by measuring their fracture energies G_c using the double cantilever beam experiment. A chemistry has been uncovered that leads to a joint stronger than one of the substrates (composite). The effect of moisture preconditioning on the fracture energies of the joints was also evaluated. A silane layer chemistry was uncovered that controls the fracture path through the composite substrate in the multilayer joint assembly and thus improves the fracture durability by a factor of 6 over joints without any silane treatment.