The flexural behaviors of the impacted composite single-lap adhesive joints

This experimental study deals with the flexural behaviors of composite single-lap adhesive joints after impact tests. Increasing impact energies are applied at the center of the composite plates having three different overlap lengths. It is shown that the overlap lengths and impact energy levels affect considerably the impact responses of the composite single-lap joints. It is also shown that the bending stiffness of the composite increases with increasing overlap length. For this reason, after the impact tests, how these effects influence the flexural behaviors of the impacted composite lap joints was also investigated. The flexural loads of the impacted and non-impacted composite single-lap joints were determined and compared with each other. It is shown that the residual flexural loads after impact increase with increasing overlap lengths but decrease with increasing impact energy.