FLUID STRUCTURE INTERACTIONS RESEARCH GROUP

Repair efficiency of resin infused scarf repaired composite structures

Dr.Jayanthi Palaniappan- j.palaniappan@soton.ac.uk - School of Engineering Sciences Supervisors Prof. A.Shenoi, Dr. S.Boyd, Prof. J. Mawella (Ministry of Defence)
Background Composite materials have been increasingly adopted in marine industries such as for patrol boats, mine counter measure vessels, hovercrafts etc. The composite materials in these vessels undergo damage during service and any permanent repair technique adopted has to restore the integrity of the damaged composite structure. Although number of researchers have studied on various repair techniques for these marine composites, layer-by-layer hand-laid and vacuum bagged scarf repaired technique provided a better repair efficiencies amongst them. However, there is always strive towards an better efficient, high quality, cost-effective and environmental friendly repair technique . Undoubtedly, for a successful repair procedure, apart from the selection of a repair configuration, of equal importance is the processing method that is used to fabricate the repair patch Methods and testing: Eglass -epoxy composite laminate with layup (0/45/-45)2s used. Destructive tensile testing of the coupons was performed at room temperature on an Instron 5569 testing machine, equipped with a 50 kN load cell, at 2 mm/min. Tensile repair efficiency studies are carried out for different repair configurations, namely, 1) Scarf angle : 1/10 and 1/20 2) Surface preparation : as produced (peel ply), surface abraded 3) Repair material: Same as parent and different to parent Failure mode studied; non-contact full field data is also collected and are used to validate the numerical model of the repair topology

The research One of the modern fabrication technology for composite material, vacuum-assisted resin infused technique is gaining wider acceptance due to reduced styrene emission, one step process, more consistent, higher laminate properties etc. In this current study, this vacuum assisted resin infused fabrication technique is adopted as the repair route to scarf repair the damaged composite. The composite scarf joint configuration was utilized to simulate scarf repaired composite panels. The tensile testing studies are carried out to obtain the repair efficiency. Aiming towards higher efficiency different repair configurations studies are attempted.

Results: Repair efficiency =

Where v is undamaged tensile strength and repaired tensile strength Tensile strength MPa Parent Repair (1:12), peelply Repair (1:20), peelply Repair (1:20, surface abraded) 486.66 3.38 246.28 11 399.59 9.9 433.57 27.5

R x100 V

R is

Repair efficiency % 50.60 81.77 88.72