Abstract
In this article, four different structural epoxy adhesives such as SPABOND™ 820HTA (non-toughened), SPABOND™ 840HTA (toughened) adhesives, and their two hybrid combinations are fabricated using a manual mixing method. Quasi-static tensile experiments are conducted at standardized and high strain rates using ASTM D638-22 Type II specimens to investigate the strain rate effects on the tensile properties. Tensile-tensile fatigue experiments are performed using ASTM D638-22 Type I and Type II specimens to evaluate the impact of specimen geometry and toughening on fatigue life. The digital image correlation technique is utilized to obtain full-field strain data in these experiments. Technical data analysis, plotting, smoothing, filtering, and averaging are carried out using Origin Pro(Ⓡ) and MATLAB R2021b(Ⓡ). The obtained S-N curve data can be used to develop fatigue failure criteria and predict the behavior of wind turbine blade adhesive joints through finite element modeling.