Advantages and Limitations of Adhesive Bonding
The description so far might be concluded through listing main advantages of adhesive joints.
(a) The adhesive joints assist maintain the appearance of surfaces. This process requires no drilling of holes as for bolted and riveted joints or screws. Hence, the original strength is not affected and no stress concentration is initiated. The adhesive joint distributes the load uniformly upon interface.
(b) This has been earlier pointed out here, are two types of adhesives that are: structural and non-structural. The former is mostly meant for giving strength while latter offers such purposes as dampening noise and vibration, insulating, preventing corrosion between dissimilar metals, sealing.
(c) The adhesives donate little to weight when utilized to join thin parts.
(d) Fragile components can be suitably bonded as no machining is required.
The materials to be jointed might be porous and might have very distinctly various properties.
(e) Heat sensitive materials can be bonded when use of adhesives not at all requires temperature exceeding to 200oC.
It is essential to keep, however, for the limitations of these joints in mind before making decision to contain them. These restrictions have already been mentioned at several points in above text as:
(a) Temperature and strength is two main adhesives weaknesses. Such joints cannot stand higher temperatures as in excess of 120oC as encountered in various service situations. Their strengths are also restricted and most metals joined via adhesives cannot be stressed to their capacity.
(b) The bonding time is requires elaborate tooling and bonding is long etc.
(c) The surface preparation for making smooth, grease and dust free is fairly tedious and costly.
(d) It is complicated to test a joint non-destructively, mostly if the structure is large.
(e) The joint reliability remains low in service.