Structural Adhesives

Designed for engineering applications within a huge range of industries, structural adhesives provide reliable, long-lasting bonding and sealing where load-bearing and other structural conditions are required. This includes a range of products intended for a diverse selection of surfaces, materials, and applications, these toughened acrylics, polyurethanes, cyanoacrylates, anaerobics, phenolics, vinyl acetates, and epoxy structural adhesives offer a broad scope of application for industrial and commercial design.

The benefits of formulated structural adhesives include the following:

• Elimination or significant reduction of costly mechanical fastening methods
• Improved aesthetics compared to mechanical fasteners
• Uniform weight distribution over the substrate
• Multi-substrate bonding: Joining of different (dissimilar) substrate materials
• Fast processing speeds
• Ideally suited for low weight or weight reduction applications
• Reduction in labor costs
• Filling of large gaps between parts
• User-friendly packaging and applicators

Today, the number of products available to manufacturers and designers, and a degree of crossover with industrial sealants and PSAs, means that finding the right structural adhesive for your needs can be challenging. Additionally, choosing the right applicator or adhesive for either manual or automated processes’ can be equally challenging, while ensuring your chosen product can be integrated efficiently into existing processes is highly important for manufacturers.

To address these challenges, the Henkel catalogue provides comprehensive information sets on each of our structural adhesives, alongside proven cases for specific industrial bonding, sealing and assembly applications. Additionally, easy-to-use packages for hand-held, manual, and semi-automated applications, including cartridges, syringes, soft-squeeze bottles and dual cartridges for two-part formulations are available. Whatever your requirements, the Henkel team is on hand to offer advice and guidance on the best structural adhesive for your design, process, or industry.

Contact us today to find out more about all our structural adhesives

Structural Adhesives Chemistries

There are many types of structural adhesives currently available that fulfil a broad range of industrial and commercial design needs. Each offers distinct advantages, allowing you to tailor your choice of adhesive according to how its features meet the demands of your specific application. Both our LOCTITE^® and TEROSON^® brands are made specifically to ensure flexibility and adaptability to a broad range of applications, which each product suitable for bonding substrates, including dissimilar substrates, with specific characteristics that target your needs. Read on to learn more about the types of structural adhesive available

Epoxy Structural Adhesive

Epoxy structural adhesives are among the most versatile, bonding easily to many substrates and offering a wide range of properties that ensure excellent shear strength in permanent bonding applications. Additionally, high thermal and chemical resistance alongside minimal shrinkage and cohesive strength mean epoxy structural adhesives are used extensively for automotive, industrial, and aerospace applications. However, there application is not limited to these industries alone, and all types of manufacturing process can benefit from a high-quality epoxy structural adhesive.

Acrylic Adhesives for Structural Bonding

Acrylic adhesives for structural bonding are specially designed for long-term bonding on virtually all surfaces. Henkel offers a line of acrylic adhesives suitable to multi-substrate structural bonding. These acrylic adhesives can be cured at room temperature or with heat. These adhesives generally replace the need for welding or riveting which lowers overall costs.

Strengths:

• Enables structural flexibility without affecting bond strength as the adhesive allows movement for thermal expansion
• Accommodating to temperature changes without passing stress to the structure
• High impact resistance/ toughness due to ability to absorb energy
• Great fracture toughness
• Lower costs as compared to acrylic adhesives (depending on production factors)

Weaknesses:

• Requires good surface finish to prevent delamination in moist environments
• Has lower strength per unit area, but in most cases exceeds what is required for joints

Polyurethane Adhesives for Structural bonding

Polyurethane structural adhesives bond a variety of different substrates such as plastic, metal, and wood. They have strong resistance to humidity and other environmental factors and are known for their cohesive strength and flexibility in use. Henkel offers both one and two-part systems to fit different manufacturing lines.

LOCTITE^® PURBOND^® is one product family associated with engineered wood applications, including lamination, and finger jointing. It offers a clear adhesive line and provides the benefit of no added formaldehyde – a significant benefit with the drive for greater sustainable options in building products. The product family features long open times and short cold set/RF times at low coating weights round out the versatility of this highly advanced adhesive system. It complies with various building code standards, including:

• CSA 0112.9 wet use
• CSA 0177 Glulam
• ASTM D2559
• ANSI 405 Glulam

It is structurally suitable for face edge and finger joint applications with a low coating weight and cleans up with water. Henkel’s polyurethane structural adhesives family provides excellent performance and cost in use.

Two-Part Structural Adhesive

Many types of structural adhesive offer 2-part application and a broad range of cure speeds. Suitable for bonding all types of substrates, these versatile and flexible solutions allow for greater control during the application process. In essence, 2-part structural adhesives allow for room temperature curing either manually or through the use of applicator nozzles in automated processes. This means safer and more efficient bonding while improving accuracy and aesthetics both during and after application.

Structural Adhesive Sealants

Structural sealants prevent the loss of pressure or liquids as well as protecting components against condensation and corrosion. Ideal for filling spaces between parts or sealing pipes, while also providing excellent adhesion on a variety of substrates, structural adhesive sealants bridge the gap between conventional sealants and adhesives. Application can be made either manually or automatically, and a range of formulations allow for flexibility across a wide range of industrial and commercial design, including high-performance gasketing and flange sealing.

Contact us today to find out more about all our structural adhesives

Industrial Applications for Structural Adhesives

Most commonly used within automotive, aerospace, electronics, construction, engineered wood, medical, and consumer industries, structural adhesives are well suited to an extremely broad range of applications. They are used for applications concerning magnet bonding, metal bonding, multiple surface bonding, NVH – noise, vibration, and harshness reduction, plastic and composite bonding, and potting and encapsulating, among many other applications.

Structural Adhesives for Metal and Plastic Bonding

High-strength, lightweight structural adhesive metal bonding formulas make all the difference in applications where metal substrates and components must be assembled. Epoxy structural adhesives are very often used with applications where metal bonding is required, although anaerobic and acrylic adhesives may also be used. Improving process efficiency in both new and established designs remains a challenge for manufacturers, and Henkel’s range of structural adhesive metal bonding products promote efficiency and cost-savings without compromising on strength, impact resistance, or aesthetics.

Acrylic and polyurethane adhesives are also commonly used for plastic and multi-substrate bonding. This makes them particularly well-suited for a wide variety of different plastic substrate bonding where high-strength hold is required in addition to resistance from humidity and environmental factors.

Structural Adhesives for Engineered Wood

The global trend towards socially-conscious construction concepts is driven by climate change and the need for efficiency. Wood tops the list of climate-friendly construction materials. As a renewable and recyclable resource, wood offers ideal structural properties - easy to work with, blends well with other materials, and supports healthy indoor air quality.

Multistory, engineered wood building construction with cross-laminated timber is bonded layers of wood transformed into high-performance structural elements. These structures span long distances and create special structural shapes. Wood is used as a loadbearing material when adding levels to existing buildings or constructing multistory apartments, hotels, hospitals, schools, large factory and warehouse buildings, sport and leisure facilities, industrial and commercial premises, and bridges.

High-performance adhesives development marks the beginning of today’s wood construction technology. LOCTITE^® PURBOND product family, one- and two-part polyurethane adhesives play an essential role in engineered wood fabrication. Engineered Wood with LOCTITE^® PURBOND Henkel’s patented and certified adhesive systems are based on industry know-how built up over many years of experience.

The engineered wood business continues to grow and expand with a proven mix of continuous innovation. As a result, even in times of a booming global economy, users can rely on consistently high product quality and a familiar team who has served them well. Henkel’s technical staff collaborates with customers to develop our adhesives technology.

LOCTITE^® PURBOND adhesives are officially approved for use by regulatory bodies in key engineered wood construction markets. Henkel continues to develop and enhance application techniques to open up new dimensions in engineered wood construction. The popularity of wood as a material, optimization of production processes and addition of new areas of application is driving an increased demand for specific, precisely controlled adhesives.

Structural Adhesive Aluminum

Aluminum provides its own set of challenges, and proper preparation to remove oxide build-up before application is key. Anaerobic, cyanoacrylate, and epoxies are most commonly used as aluminum structural adhesives, ensuring strong bonds and impact resistance for a range of aluminum alloys. Pushing for more efficient processing and cost-savings in all types of design, Henkel’s range of products is ready to meet your specific requirements.

Seam Sealing

Reliable and robust seam sealing across a range of applications requires dedicated structural adhesive sealants. Designed to provide strength and tight seals where liquids or gases are present, structural adhesive sealants provide excellent thermal and chemical resistance for components while also minimizing corrosion and ensuring efficient operation. Henkel’s range of products provides fast processing speeds and reliable joint sealing while also ensuring reliability and strength in demanding environments, with high-performance gasketing and flange sealing among the many applications.

Further Resources

For more details on Henkel’s products, including comprehensive safety sheets and RoHs on each of our structural adhesive solutions, download the PDF you require here. If you cannot find the information you need, contact us today for more TDS and SDS sheets or to ask any questions.