An Investigation of Adhesive/Adherend and Fiber/Matrix Interactions Part A - Surface Characterization of Titanium Dioxide, Titanium and Titantium 6% Al-40% V Powders: Interaction with Water, Hydrogen Chloride and Polymers.

Adhesives are being used increasingly to bond metal structural components. For example, an extensive effort is underway to adhesively bond Ti 6 Al -4 V sections in advanced aircraft 1. Several chemical pretreatments have been developed to clean the alloy surface to obtain better adhesive bonding 2. The strength and durability of these adhesive bonds depend in part on the properties of the oxide layer present on the alloy surface. A number of experimental techniques including electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis 3,4, scanning transmission electron microscopy 4,5, reflectance visible-infrared spectroscopy 6, secondary ion mass spectrometry 7, Auger electron spectroscopy 2,8, and ion scattering spectroscopy 7 have been used to characterize this oxide layer. The surface oxide layer is generally accepted to be titanium dioxide. It has been reported that the layer on the Ti 6-4 surface may indeed, be the rutile 8 phase of TiO2. However, because of its low surface area it is difficult to characterize the oxide layer directly on the metal surface, and to study the interaction of the oxide layer with polymer adhesives. jg p18