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Thus, in many applications, which may involve some of the most critical uses of adhesives technology, the bonded joints are exposed to an environment which also happens to be one of the most potentially damaging. Indeed, the aspect of the durability of adhesive joints to aqueous environments is undoubtedly one of the most important challenges that the adhesives community faces. In particular, there are two main challenges to develop (a) adhesive systems (i.e. combinations of an adhesive/primer/surface pretreatment/substrate type, all of which may interact to affect the joint durability) which possess excellent long-term durability, and which are environmentally friendly and cost effective and (b) test methods and models to accurately rank and predict the service-life from short-term experiments, and thereby convince the potential user that an adequate durability will be realised. Clearly, these two aims are strongly inter-linked. 

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