Structural Adhesive Advantages
Replace Mechanical Fasteners with Structural Adhesives
Structural adhesive bonds have replaced both mechanical fasteners and assembly techniques such as soldering, brazing and welding in many industrial applications; and have been designed for the structural bonding of nearly all thermoplastics, metals, and composite materials, and other dissimilar substrates. These adhesives are used in a wide range of applications including automotive, marine, transportation, construction, HVAC, wind energy, and industrial assemblies. And they have been formulated to bond a variety of substrates using little or no product preparation.
Structural Adhesive Product Classifications
The main classes of adhesives meeting structural adhesive requirements are epoxies, no-mix acrylics, methacryalates, UV curables, and polyurethanes. The advantages of using these classes of structural adhesive bonding agents over other joining techniques include:
- Cost savings, including lower labor costs.
- Weight reduction.
- Elimination of stress point concentrations by even distribution of stress over the entire bonded surface, plus improved load bearing capacity.
- Protective sealing against contamination by liquids or gases.
- Bonding of dissimilar materials (dissimilar surfaces or substrates). Often the adhesive bond line acts as an insulator against galvanic corrosion in metal assemblies.
- Improved fatigue resistance, and resistance to shock, vibration, and thermal cycling.
- Enhanced structural appearance because protrusions, punctures, and attachments are eliminated.
- Increased tolerances on machined parts, as some structural, industrial adhesives fill gaps left when parts mate poorly.
Few available adhesive products meet the stringent requirements of structural adhesives, such as durability, high strength, and dimensional stability over a wide range of environmental conditions.
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