When designing adhesives joint it is better the the operating load is transferred as a shear stress as opposed to a tensile stress. Adhesives are also poor in withstanding peel and cleavage loads. The most typical design of adhesive joints are the lap joint and the axial fit joint. Normal adhesive joints are shown below. The double lap joint is preferred to a single lap joint as bending moments are reduced and , as a result peel loads are reduced.
The sketches below indicate simple methods of providing improved adhesive joints be reducing the peel load.
