A Theory of Adhesive Scarf Joints

Abstract

Abstract This paper establishes conditions under which a wide or narrow adhesive scarf joint can have uniformly distributed adhesive stresses, and gives formulas for these stresses. The results are rigorously limited to linear adhesive stress-strain relations, but are such that they sometimes may be applicable in analyzing scarf-joint tests to destruction, even when appreciable inelastic deformation occurs. Previously published test data are found to have one of the failure-load variations with scarf angle to be considered in this paper. The analysis therefore should prove useful in design work within the elastic limit, and in some cases beyond it.