Fracture R-curve of a toughened epoxy adhesive as a function of irreversible degradation

Open-faced double cantilever beam (DCB) specimens of a toughened epoxy-aluminum adhesive system were degraded over a relatively wide range of temperature, relative humidity (RH) and exposure time, dried and tested to characterize the irreversible evolution of the mixed-mode fracture resistance curves (R-curves). The water diffusion properties of the bulk adhesive were modeled using an earlier sequential dual Fickian (SDF) model for the same...