Challenges in Development of Structural Repair Manuals for Composite Fuselage

Abstract

There is wide application of composite materials in commercial transport fuselage structure. With extensive usage of composite material systems there is requirement for incorporation of maintainability and repairability requirements of composite primary structure into the design. Such issues need to be addressed to meet regulatory requirements and ensure that life-cycle costs are competitive with current metallic structure. Development of Structural Repair Manual (SRM) needs to account for maintenance issues early in the design cycle and provide multiple repair options. Furthermore, proposed repair solution must have tradeoff between ease of installation, damage resistance/tolerance (repair frequency), and inspection burdens. To support SRM development analysis methods are developed to assess structural strength, repair life, residual strength in the presence of damage, and to evaluate repair design concepts. This paper summarizes the experiences in development of repair options for composite fuselage components due to complexities of material system and additional analysis requirements.