Evaluation of the Bolted Metallic Repair on Damaged Stiffened Composite Panel

Abstract

The compression behavior of a damaged I-section stiffened panel repaired by the bolted metal patch method is studied experimentally and numerically by the finite element method in this paper. In the finite element model, the bolt was simulated by a combination of beam elements coupled to rigid contact surfaces, the coupling failure criterion and a new delamination criterion were used to analyze the failure of composite laminates and bonding interfaces, respectively. The repairing effects of the mechanical fastening method are compared with the panels with damage. The results show that the load-carrying capacity of the repaired panel increases significantly compared with the panel with damage. The experimental results validate the proposed finite element model. Finally, an improved repair configuration is proposed based on the finite element simulation. This shows that the presented repair is useful and effective to repair the damaged composite structures.