Methods for Measuring Mechanical Properties of Adhesives and Sealers for Use in Finite Element Analysis Modelling

Test methods to measure mechanical properties of adhesives and sealers such as elastic and shear moduli, Poisson's ratio and damping terms are reviewed. Both standard methods for determining true bulk mechanical properties and methods for determining engineering estimates of mechanical properties of adhesives and sealers “as used” in automotive applications are presented. Mechanical properties are important parameters for designing adhesively bonded and damped automotive structures. Properties such as modulus are typically used in finite element analysis modelling to aid design and optimization of automotive structures. This paper is given as a companion paper to “FEA (Finite Element Analysis) Modelling for Body-In-White Adhesives” by David Wagner, see SAE Paper #960784.