Energy Release Rate for Repaired Inclined Cracks with Bonded Composite Patch Having Two Adhesive Bands in Aircraft Structures

Abstract

Adhesive in bonded composite repair plays two opposite roles. The first consists in ensuring the transfer of load between the composite patch and the cracked aluminum component. The second role is to ensure the connection between these two structures in order to avoid the adhesive failure. In this study, a method of repair is proposed; it consists in dividing the adhesive layer into two bands with different properties. The first band is bonded on the crack region to ensure the stress transfer and the second band is bonded beyond the crack region to avoid the adhesive failure. The case of mixed mode loading (inclined crack) is studied. The energy release rate at the crack tip is computed for this repair configuration using the finite element method. The obtained results show that the energy release rate at the crack tip is considerably reduced by the difference of properties between the two adhesive bands, which can imply the improvement of fatigue life of cracked structures.

Keywords

bonded composite repair two adhesive bands crack the energy release rate adhesive stress finite element method.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Baker, A.A. (1984). Repair of Cracked or Defective Metallic Components With Advanced Fibre Composites: An Overview of Australian Work, Composite Structures, 2: 153-181.

Baker, A.A. and Jones, R. (1998). Bonded Repair of Aircraft Structures, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Baker, A.A. and Chester, R.J. (1993). Recent Advances in Bonded Composite repair Technology for Metallic Aircraft Components, In: Proceeding of the International Conference on Advanced Composite Materials, pp. 45-49, Australia.

Baker, A.A. (1997). On the Certification of Bonded Composite Repairs Primary Aircraft Structures, In: Proceeding of the Eleventh International Conference of Composite Materials (ICCM-11). Gold Coast, Australia.

Ting, T. , Jones, R. , Chiu, W.K. , Marshall, I.H. and Greer, J.M. (1999). Composites Repairs to Rib Stiffened Panels, Compos . Struct., 47: 737-743.

Callinan, R.J. , Sanderson, S. and Keeley, D. (1997). Finite Element Analysis of an F-111 Lower Wing Skin Fatigue Crack Repair, Melbourne. DSTO-TN-0067.

Jones, R. and Chiu, W.K. (1999). Composite Repairs to Crack in Metallic Components , Composite Structures, 44: 17-29.

Turaga, V.R.S. and Ripudaman, S. (1999). Modelling of Patch Repairs to a Thin Cracked Sheet, Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 62: 267-289.

Bachir Bouiadjra, B. , Belhouari, M. and Serier, B. (2002). Computation of the Stress Intensity Factor for Repaired Crack with Bonded Composite Patch in Mode I and Mixed Mode, Compositr Structures, 56: 401-406.

10.

Achour, T. , Bachir Bouiadjra, B. and Serier, B. (2003). Numerical Analysis of the Performances of the Bonded Composite Patch for Reducing Stress Concentration and Repairing Cracks at Notch, Computational Material. Sciences, 28: 41-48.

11.

Megueni, A. , Bachir Bouiadjra , B. and Boutabout, B. (2003). Computation of the Stress Intensity Factor for Patched Crack with Bonded Composite Repair in Pure Mode II, Composite Structures, 59: 415-418.

12.

Belhouari, M. , Bachir Bouiadjra , B. , Megueni, M. and Kaddouari, K. (2004). Comparison of Double and Single Bonded Repairs to Symmetric Composite Structures: A Numerical Analysis, Composite Structures, 65: 47-53.

13.

Swenson, D. , James, M. and FRANC2D/L: A Crack Propagation Simulator for Plane Layered Structures, Version 1.4 User's Guide, 1998.

14.

Henshel, R.D. and Shaw, K.G. (1975). Crack Tip Finite Elements are Unnecessary, Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng., 9: 495-507.