The Analysis of Adhesive Residue Failure

Adhesives have always been, and will continue to be, a crucial component of assembling flight hardware. Unfortunately, adhesives have a long standing history of being a source of costly contaminations. There are currently no existing documents that can aid a technician in discerning the proper adhesive/substrate combinations, nor the optimal solvent to use when removing adhesive residue. This project seeks to evaluate the performance of adhesive tapes on various flight hardware substrates in order to create an easy-to-use guide for spacecraft ground processing. The analyses performed were the adhesive/solvent solubility, SEM examinations, and peel adhesion tests. The solubility tests showed that amyl acetate, acetone, and MEK were the most successful in dissolving the adhesives. The SEM data gives preliminary insight into the morphology of the residues. Lastly, the peel adhesion testing proved that there is no relationship between the length of time the adhesive was applied and its adhesive strength.