This course provides a solid foundation in the principles of adhesively bonded repairs in aluminum structures, including both lap joints and face sheet bonding in sandwich structures with aluminum honeycomb cores. While these subjects are briefly covered in our Adhesive Bonding of Composites & Metals course, the emphasis in this course is strictly on metallic structures, and many more aluminum-specific surface preparations and bonding methods are covered in detail here.

The proper surface preparation of aluminum and aluminum honeycomb for structural adhesive bonding is a complex subject, with many different techniques and processes having been developed over the years. Some of these have proven to be deficient after many years of service. Others have proven their long-term durability, but have significant health and safety issues, as well as hazardous waste disposal problems. Newer techniques are available which mitigate many of these issues, but introduce additional complexities and process control issues of their own.

These processes are discussed extensively in this class, and the students will perform some of these operations themselves in the process of building test panels as well as working on existing parts during the course of the week. Different surface preparation techniques, adhesives, and curing methods are all tried by the students; including some deliberately poor but commonly used surface preparation methods. These panels will be cured and tested to destruction to see the effects of these various items.

Various test methods will be used, and results analyzed and discussed. Most emphasis will be placed on newer techniques which not only give better results, but are in many ways more environmentally friendly, as well as easier to perform.