Characterisation of Novel Corrosion Resistant Stainless Steel/Rubber/Composite Hybrid Structures

Last decade has shown an increasing interest in hybrid materials and structures. With hybrids there is not only potential to create high strength low weight structures, but also to tailor the properties of the final product in a way that is unattainable by any single material alone. Simpler manufacturing process, increased functional integration, improved sound and vibration damping properties, enhanced crack propagation resistance and protection against collapse in a crash are just some examples of possible advantages of hybrid materials. However, before implementation in industrial application, adequate adhesion between the material components of a hybrid must be ensured. Also, from industrial point of view the required manufacturing method should not increase substantially the costs of the product. Although many established adhesion procedures exist, there is still lack of functioning joining methods for certain material combinations. Especially, the adhesive joining of polymeric materials to stainless steel is demanding, as the conventional methods require laborious manufacturing steps. In this study, the possibility to bond stainless steel to fibre reinforced epoxy composite with an ethylene propylene diene terpolymer (EPDM) based rubber is studied. Two different rubber compounds are used to create stainless steel/rubber/composite hybrids and a mild steel/rubber/composite structure is used as a reference. Both geometry-dependent peel tests together with environmental testing and geometry-independent single cantilever beam test are used to study the adhesion of the structure’s interfaces. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy are used to characterise the nature of the interfaces of the hybrids. In addition, the effect of the rubber on the energy absorption properties of the hybrid structure was of interest. This was studied by non-destructive vibration damping test and by high velocity impact test. In these tests, both sample geometry (rubber thickness) and test parameters were varied to investigate their effect on the hybrid’s behaviour. It was found that the studied method to bond stainless steel and epoxy composite by EPDM rubber enables the use of a simple manufacturing process and it furthermore results in wellbonded hybrid structure. The stainless steel/composite bond strength is defined by the cohesive strength of the rubber and the bond maintains its strength in harsh environments. This enables the evaluation of the stainless steel/composite bond’s strength by using the rubber’s bulk properties instead of the substrate/rubber interfacial properties, which are difficult to define in a reliable manner. The stainless steel/rubber/composite structure has significantly better vibration damping properties than an all-metal structure. In addition, the rubber improves significantly the damage tolerance of the structure when compared to a corresponding structure which has been conventionally bonded. Thus, the approach of joining stainless steel to fibre reinforced epoxy composite with rubber has potential for industrial applications and the hybrid structure would offer a lighter and better damping solution when compared to all-metallic ones.