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An experimental method to determine the complete stress versus deformation relation for a thin adhesive layer loaded in shear is presented. The method is based on a classic specimen geometry; the end-notch flexure specimen. The experiments are evaluated using an inverse method. First, the variation of the energy release rate with respect to the shear deformation at the crack tip is measured during an experiment. Then the traction-deformation relation is derived using an inverse method. The theory is based on the path-independence of the J-integral and considers the effects of a flexible adhesive layer.Quasi-static experiments on three different specimen geometries are performed using a servo-hydraulic testing machine. The experiments give consistent results. This shows that the traction-deformation relation can be taken as independent of the dimensions of the adherends. Thus, the constitutive relation can be considered as a property of the adhesive layer. The deformation process at the crack tip is also monitored during the experiments by the use of a digital camera attached to a microscope.

Mixed mode testing of adhesive layer is performed with the Mixed mode double Cantilever Beam specimen. During the experiments, the specimens are loaded by transversal and/or shear forces; seven different mode mixities are tested. The Jintegral is used to evaluate the energy dissipation in the failure process zone. The constitutive behaviour of the adhesive layer is obtained by a so called inverse method and fitting an existing mixed mode cohesive model, which uses a coupled formulation to describe a mode dependent constitutive behaviour. The cohesive parameters are determined by optimizing the parameters of the cohesive model to the experimental data. A comparison is made with the results of two fitting procedures. It is concluded that the constitutive properties are coupled, i.e. the peel and shear stress depend on both the peel and shear deformations. Moreover, the experiments show that the critical deformation in the peel direction is virtually independent of the mode mixity.

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