The U.S. Army’s Adhesive Bonding Improvement Initiative

Abstract

During 1985, an incident involving the debond in flight of the rain erosion boot from the blade of a Cobra helicopter called attention to adhesive bonding problems in Army aircraft. A study of such problems, later expanded to include all categories of Army materiel, identified the root cause of these problems and recommended a course of action to reduce or eliminate such problems in current systems and prevent their occurence in systems now in development or on the drawing board. The balance of this paper presents the results of this study and its recommendations.