Duncan, B C; Abbott, S*; Court, R*; Roberts, R*; Leatherdale, D* (2003) A review of adhesive bonding assembly processes and measurement methods. NPL Report. MATC(A)135

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Abstract

Adhesive bonding is a key manufacturing technology. However, the adhesive industry suffers from a perception within certain industries that its products are a low technology commodity item and, hence, the choice of adhesive for a given application is largely based on cost alone. This is compounded by the lack of measuring techniques available to distinguish performance differences and processability.
There are many different types of processes and materials that can be involved in the manufacture of an adhesive bond. There are also many measurement and inspection methods that could, in theory, be used to improve the bonding process but are either unsuitable in practical applications or not used for many reasons. Although there are many factors influence bonding effectiveness, there are some aspects of the adhesive bonding process that are key to nearly every bonding operation. These are in the areas of flow characteristics, substrate characterisation and inspection, wetting and adsorption on surfaces, initial bond strength and cure. Some of these aspects are interlinked (e.g. flow characteristics and wetting/adsorption).
The key areas needing to be addressed, identified in this review are:

· Techniques for characterising rheology of adhesives for high rate and intermittent dispensing processes.
· Quantitative techniques for slump properties and wet strength.
· Inspection of rough and porous surfaces for suitability to bond (e.g. for roughness, porosity, surface layer strength).
· Measurement of substrate wettability, in particular to water based and hot melt adhesives.
· Measurement of adhesive spread and adsorption on surfaces.
· Determination of tack and setting rates of adhesives with transient properties (e.g. hot melts).

To be useful to industry any measurement techniques developed to meet these needs should be suitable for use on the production line or in small workshops or industrial laboratories and should depend on robust easy to use equipment. Techniques must be cost effective in order to enable industry to justify their use.

Item Type:	Report/Guide (NPL Report)
NPL Report No.:	MATC(A)135
Keywords:	rheology, wetting
Subjects:	Advanced Materials Advanced Materials > Adhesives
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2018 13:16
URI:	http://eprintspublications.npl.co.uk/id/eprint/2607

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