An usual experimental observation retrieved in the technical literature is that the strength of an adhesive joint decreases by increasing the adhesive layer thickness. This well-known behaviour is still not completely understood. All works found in the literature consider a complex stress state in the adhesive with mode mixing, stress concentrations on the midplane, and stress singularities at the interface occurring at the same time. This paper aims at estimating the effect of the adhesive thickness on its intrinsic static shear strength and evaluate whether this strength can explain the behaviour of a real bonded joint. A nearly uniform shear stress distribution is obtained through an ad-hoc tubular butt joint subject to pure torsion. A standard single lap joint is considered as a benchmark, due to its complex and singular stress field into the adhesive. The experimental campaign is focused on two brittle adhesives: a modified methacrylate and high-strength epoxy. Four levels and three levels of the adhesive thickness were considered in the tubular butt joint and in the single lap joint, respectively, all in the range between 0.05 and 0.4 mm. The effect of the adhesive thickness on the static strength of the adhesive is investigated by considering the type of failure and by comparing the structural stresses in the tubular butt joint with the ones on the midplane of the adhesive layer in the single lap joint. Moreover, the stress intensity factor in the single lap joint is calculated.

This paper describes the properties and the engineering applications of the smart materials, especially in the mechatronics field. Even though there are several smart materials which all are very interesting from the research perspective, we decide to focus the work on just three of them. The adopted criterion privileges the most promising technologies in terms of commercial applications available on the market, namely: magnetorheological fluids, shape memory alloys and piezoelectric materials. Many semi-active devices such as dampers or brakes or clutches, based on magnetorheological fluids are commercially available; in addition, we can trace several applications of piezo actuators and shape memory-based devices, especially in the field of micro actuations. The work describes the physics behind these three materials and it gives some basic equations to dimension a system based on one of these technologies. The work helps the designer in a first feasibility study for the applications of one of these smart materials inside an industrial context. Moreover, the paper shows a complete survey of the applications of magnetorheological fluids, piezoelectric devices and shape memory alloys that have hit the market, considering industrial, biomedical, civil and automotive field.