Abstract
Bonded patches are widely used in several industry sectors for repairing damaged plates, cracks in metallic structures, and reinforcement of damaged structures. Composite patches have optimal properties such as high strength-to-weight ratio, easiness in being applied, and high flexibility. Due to recent rapid growth in the aerospace industry, analyses of adhesively bonded patches applicable to repairing cracked structures have become of great significance. In the present study, the fatigue behavior of the aluminum alloy, repaired by a double-sided glass/epoxy composite patch, is studied numerically. More specifically, the effect of applying a double-sided composite patch on the fatigue life improvement of a damaged aluminum 6061-T6 is analyzed. 3D finite element numerical modeling is performed to analyze the fatigue performance of both repaired and unrepaired aluminum plates using the Abaqus package. To determine the fatigue life of the aluminum 6061-T6 plate, first, the hysteresis loop is determined, and afterward, the plastic strain amplitude is calculated. Finally, by using the Coffin-Manson equation, fatigue life is predicted and validated against the available experimental data from the literature. Results reveal that composite patches increase the fatigue life of cracked structures significantly, ranging from 55% to 100% for different applied stresses.
Highlights
Nowadays, composite patches, due to their unique properties such as lightness, ease of application, high flexibility, and high stiffness, are increasingly being used in industrial applications such as aerospace structures and automobile industries
The effect of applying double-sided glass fiber/epoxy composite on the fatigue life improvement of cracked aluminum 6061-T6 plate is investigated numerically. 3D finite element analysis is performed to investigate the effect of glass fiber/epoxy patch on the fatigue life of damaged structures
To verify the proposed model, finite element method (FEM) results were compared with available experimental data [33]
Summary
Composite patches, due to their unique properties such as lightness, ease of application, high flexibility, and high stiffness, are increasingly being used in industrial applications such as aerospace structures and automobile industries. Most of the previous research studies have investigated the effect of composite patch on the crack growth or fatigue life by calculating SIF by employing FEM. 3D finite element analysis is performed to investigate the effect of glass fiber/epoxy patch on the fatigue life of damaged structures. In this regard, the steady-state hysteresis loop is determined, from which the plastic strain is calculated. The main novelty of this study is employing the strain-based approach to investigate the effect of applying glass fiber/epoxy composite patch on fatigue life in which the strain is calculated using representative volume element (cylindrical-shaped volume)
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