Effect of Hygrothermal Aging on Strength Performance of Cork Powder Reinforced Adhesive /

Abstract

Adhesives play a crucial role across various industries and applications due to their ability to bond materials together. They are used in numerous ways, ranging from everyday household applications to industrial and specialized fields. Strength is the most critical factor to analyze before using the adhesive. Various techniques have already been developed and many are being developed to predict and improve the strength of adhesive. The addition of cork powder to the structural adhesives could improve the strength of adhesive joints through mechanical interlocking between the cork cells and the molecules of adhesive. However, even with the nanofiller reinforcement, the strength of adhesive joints is significantly affected by environmental parameters like temperature and humidity. The present study investigated the effect of hydrothermal aging on the strength characteristics of cork powder-reinforced adhesive samples. Reinforced adhesive samples were investigated under two different humidity levels of 80% and 100% RH. The cork powder will be added in concentration of 0.25wt.%, 0.5wt.%, 0.75wt.% and 1wt.% to study the reinforcing effects. The result shows that the saturated mass increased with increased in relative humidity that is approximately 0.4% and 0.9% for 80% and 100% RH respectively. The findings show that the ultimate tensile strength is reduced by the addition of cork powder as well as enhancing humidity. Furthermore, the addition of cork powder makes the sample more brittle, so failure strain and tensile toughness undergo decrement. The above finding indicated that hot-wet environment has a negative influence on strength performance of cork powder reinforced adhesive. In future the same study can be performed to know the strength of SLJ and DLJ to know its effect on joints.