Adhesive bonding has become an essential joining method in the automotive industry specially with the recent focus on lightweight reduction. A major limiting factor to the widespread implementation of this joining method is concerns about environmental durability. Many research projects have been conducted to investigate the effect environmental exposure on cured adhesive joints, however, the effect that this exposure has on uncured bonds has been overlooked. This study, conducted in collaboration with Volvo cars, aims to investigate the degradation of mechanical properties caused by environmental exposure on uncured bonds and to provide practical recommendations on how to minimize its detrimental effect.  To achieve these objectives adhesive joints were manufactured by a crash resistant epoxy based adhesive and exposed to different climates for different ageing times and conditions. Afterwards, curing and mechanical testing were performed to assess the degradation of mechanical properties: shear strength, peel strength and fatigue life. Analysis of the results showed harsher climates to be linked to an increase in degradation of mechanical properties, an open bond exposure to accelerate the degradation process. Defects were introduced as pores and a decrease in adhesion to the adherend. Practical recommendations were made to minimize open bond exposure and harsh climates.

A novel constitutive characterization method for uncured rubber behaviour has been developed in this article. A systematic measuring procedure was designed to fully investigate the uncured rubber complex stress–strain behaviour under different deformation patterns, which integrated three kinds of tests – the uniaxial tensile, the compression test and the shear test. It can be found from the observed behaviour that the uncured rubber has similar but much pronounced non-elastic stress–strain relationship, which is highly non-linear and highly rate dependent. A generalized Maxwell model with modified Yeoh model is developed to constitutively describe the observed phenomena in which parameters are identified by an evolution optimization scheme. Good agreement can be found between the model and the test data. Another finding is that, similar to vulcanized rubber, multi-test data are needed to obtain compatible constitutive models. The test results, findings and the developed model help rubber engineers deeply understand the uncured rubber’s mechanical behaviour and provide a base for rubber manufacturing simulation.

Microwave curing has become a trend in composite processing due to its efficiency in energy consumption compared to the traditional curing method. However, as commonly found in every composite processing, controlling the microwave curing process remains challenging. The most feasible control method is to build a numerical model. In this report, the numerical model was developed to simulate the microwave heating of cured and uncured glass/epoxy samples. The objective of cured sample simulation was to obtain the average electric field intensity generated in the composite, which was then used in the uncured sample simulation. Meanwhile, three methods of microwave heating to the uncured samples were suggested, i.e. heating with constant electric field intensity, heating with non-constant electric field intensity, and heating with concentrated electric field intensity. The simulation was further expanded by combining microwave heating with contact heating to improve the curing state on the corner section. The simulation showed a reasonable temperature evolution trend for all three microwave-heated methods of an uncured sample. However, they are all different from the experiment result. Meanwhile, a high temperature in the core layer was observed in all simulations with a gradual temperature decline toward the outer layer, as expected from a microwave heated object. Finally, a decent degree of cure was obtained by employing additional contact heating without involving microwaves. / Mikrovågsbaserad härdning har blivit en trend inom komposittillverkning på grund av dess energieffektivitet jämfört med den traditionella härdningsmetoden. Men precis som i all komposittillverkning är det fortfarande utmanande att kontrollera mikrovågshärdningsprocessen. Den mest genomförbara kontrollmetoden är att bygga en numerisk modell. I den här rapporten utvecklades en numerisk modell för att simulera mikrovågvärmning av härdat och ohärdat glas/epoxiprover. Målet med simuleringen av de härdade proven var att få fram den genomsnittliga intensiteten av det elektriska fältet som genereras i kompositen, vilket sedan användes i simuleringen av de ohärdade proven. Samtidigt föreslogs tre metoder för mikrovågshärdning av de ohärdade proven, nämligen uppvärmning med konstant intensitet av det elektriska fältet, uppvärmning med varierande intensitet av det elektriska fältet och uppvärmning med koncentrerad intensitet av det elektriska fältet. Simuleringen utökades sedan genom att kombinera mikrovågshärdning med kontaktuppvärmning för att förbättra härdningsgraden i hörnsektionen. Simuleringen visade en rimlig temperaturutveckling för alla tre metoder för mikrovågsuppvärmda ohärdade prov. Dock skiljer de sig alla från experimentresultatet. Samtidigt observerades en hög temperatur i kärnskiktet i alla simuleringar med gradvis temperatursänkning mot ytterlagret, vilket förväntas hos ett mikrovågsuppvärmt objekt. Slutligen uppnåddes en acceptabel härdningsgrad genom mot sluret addera kontaktuppvärmning utan mikrovågor.