Nowadays, structural adhesives are increasingly being used for new applications, replacing conventional bonding methods. Epoxy resins are the most common structural adhesives used due to their suitable mechanical, thermal and chemical properties, despite their low ductility. In the past decades, several researchers have found it crucial to reverse these properties and find new ways to increase the ductility of these adhesives. The inclusion of particles (nano or micro) is an effective method to improve ductility of structural adhesives. In the present study, natural micro particles of cork are used with the objective of increasing the ductility of a brittle epoxy adhesive. The concept is for the cork particles to act like as a crack stopper leading to more energy absorption. The influence of the cork particle size, amount and the presence of a surface treatment were studied. The maximum strain of the adhesive was assessed through tensile tests. A Taguchi design experiments was used to understand the influence of each parameter under study (amount, size and presence of surface treatment) and their interaction. Through this research it was possible to settle that cork can improve ductility and cork amount, size and the use of plasma surface treatment have influence on the mechanical properties.

中文翻译：

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分析尺寸，数量和表面处理对微软木颗粒增强的脆性胶粘剂拉伸应变的影响

如今，结构粘合剂正越来越多地用于新应用，以取代传统的粘合方法。尽管具有低延展性，但由于其合适的机械，热和化学性能，环氧树脂是最常用的结构粘合剂。在过去的几十年中，几位研究人员发现逆转这些特性并找到增加这些胶粘剂延展性的新方法至关重要。包含颗粒（纳米或微米）是提高结构粘合剂延展性的有效方法。在本研究中，使用软木塞的天然微粒是为了增加脆性环氧粘合剂的延展性。该概念是为了使软木颗粒充当裂纹阻止剂，从而吸收更多能量。软木塞粒径的影响，研究了表面处理量和表面处理。通过拉伸试验评估粘合剂的最大应变。Taguchi设计实验用于了解所研究的每个参数（量，大小和表面处理的存在）的影响及其相互作用。通过这项研究，可以确定软木可以改善延展性，软木的数量，大小以及等离子表面处理的使用都会影响其机械性能。