Adhesive bonding is widely seen as the most optimal method for joining composite materials, bringing significant benefits over mechanical joining, such as lower weight and reduced stress concentrations. Adhesively bonded composite joints find extensive applications where cyclic fatigue loading takes place, but this might ultimately lead to crack damage and safety issues. Consequently, it has become essential to study how these structures behave under fatigue loads and identify the remaining gaps in knowledge to give insights into new possibilities. The fatigue life of adhesively bonded composite joints is influenced by various parameters, including joint configuration and material properties of adherends and adhesive. Numerous studies with varying outcomes have been documented in the literature. However, due to the multitude of influential factors, deriving conclusive insights from these studies for practical design purposes has proven to be challenging. Hence, this review aims to address this challenge by discussing different methods to enhance the fatigue performance of adhesively bonded composite joints. Additionally, it provides a comprehensive overview of the existing literature on adhesively bonded composite joints under cyclic fatigue loading, focusing on three main aspects: Adherends modification, adhesive modification, and joint configurations. Since the effect of modifying the adhesive, adherends, and joint configurations on fatigue performance has not been comprehensively studied in the literature, this review aims to fill this gap by compiling and comparing the relevant experimental data. Furthermore, this review discusses the challenges and limitations associated with the methods that can be used to monitor the initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks.
Keywords: adhesively bonded joints; composite materials; fatigue; fatigue life; geometry effects.