Determining material properties of orthotropic bimaterials

Bonded joints with dissimilar materials occur frequently in engineering structures. Examples of such structures can be found in MEMS, aerospace, and automotive engineering. The problem of an orthotropic bimaterial interface is of particular interest, where in an effort to gain greater insight, an inverse problem methodology may be applied. Considering only the displacement field response of an orthotropic bimaterial of the areas surrounding the interface it is possible to define two inverse problems: (a) for known geometry and material properties determine the applied boundary loads; and, (b) for known geometry and applied boundary loads determine the material properties of all material components. This paper examines the use finite element model updating to illustrate the viability of solving the two inverse problems posed above.