Investigation of the effect of 3d printed reinforcement on the tensile strength of t type adhesive joints

In this study, the effect of strengthening the delta regions of T-type connections, which are frequently preferred in aviation and space applications, on the tensile behavior and tensile strength of the reinforcement materials produced with a 3D printer was experimentally investigated. AL-5754 alloy was used as the main material to be adhered and 3M DP460 epoxy based structural adhesive was used as the adhesive material. While the samples were being prepared, the overlap length, bend diameter and reinforcement material geometry were varied. The damage load decreased as the overlap length and bend diameter increased for the unreinforced samples, while the damage load value increased as the overlap length increased for all reinforcement materials. Compared to non-reinforced materials accepted as reference, the greatest increase in strength was observed with 1461% in the samples using reinforcement material with hollow and horizontal supports with 30 mm overlap length and bending diameter. While the main damage type seen in the samples was cohesion damage, the reinforcement materials were also damaged as the overlap length and bend diameter increased.