Assessing stress state and mean load effects on the fatigue response of adhesively bonded joints

Normalised fatigue load-life data for four different structural configurations of the same adhesive-substrate system have been obtained through a large programme of fatigue testing. Within these four configurations the effect of both the mean load and, to a lesser extent, the frequency of the fatigue cycle have been assessed. For the particular adhesibe system being considered the effect of the frequency of the fatigue cycle was shown to be...