Plenary 3- The failure of adhesive layers: from fast fracture to stress corrosion

Adhesive joints are increasing used in engineering components, particularly in the bonding of dissimilar materials. This talk focuses on deformation and failure mechanisms of a sandwich joint: brittle fracture in elastic layers, ductile failure by cohesive zone modelling, diffusion-controlled attack of an interface and toughening of an adhesive layer by the presence of micro-architectured reinforcement.