Self-resistive electrical heating for rapid repairing of carbon fiber reinforced composite parts

Carbon fiber reinforced plastics have been widely applied in aircraft structures, which require more rapidly repairing process when carbon fiber reinforced plastics structures are damaged. A novel method of self-resistive electrical heating to rapidly repair carbon fiber reinforced plastics parts was investigated, which utilizes the electrical current passing through the carbon fiber to generate heat and directly cure the whole carbon fiber reinforced plastics patches. A portable self-resistive electrical repairer with automatic temperature control unit was developed. Repair experiments of self-resistive electrical and the electrical blanket heating were conducted, in which the heating temperature distribution field was observed by the thermal infrared imager. The degree of cure of different samples was characterized, and the cross-section morphology and void content of different samples were assessed. Flexural and inter-laminar shear tests were carried out. The experiment results showed that the flexural and interlaminar shear strength recovery ratio of self-resistive electrical repaired samples attained to 85.48% and 65.89%, which was the same or even slightly higher level as the blanket repairing process, but only cost 62% repairing period and 58% repairing energy of the later one. Finally, from the experimental results, the heat transfer behavior of different processes was analyzed.