Introduction

The importance of quality assurance in any industry is widely acknowledged. More stringent customer expectations with regard to quality, together with the realisation that continued improvements in quality are often necessary for a company to sustain good economic performance, mean that some level of quality assurance is mandatory for all those associated with adhesive bonding operations. The use of technical specifications and quality control procedures go some way towards fulfilling the requirements of a quality system, and these measures are outlined here.

Most of the aspects relating to the selection and use of adhesives have been discussed in the first four chapters. For example, the properties of adhesive materials have been reviewed, together with the design approach appropriate to structures assembled with them. The importance of surface pretreatment and its influence on joint durability has also been covered. However adhesion science must also interface with fabrication considerations and with structural engineering. To the technical difficulties facing the production engineer in using structural adhesives must be added a number of others for the civil engineer. Primarily these are that:

1. each project tends to be a ‘one-off’ production

2. fabrication commonly takes place on site and so the environment is not easily controlled

3. the success of the bonding operation is very dependent on the diligence employed by the operatives and the work requires skilled supervision

4. the bonded assembly has to last for many decades

5. adhesive polymers have poor fire resistance