REPAIR OF COMPOSITE LAMINATES-I - TEST-RESULTS

Tests were conducted with the objective of evaluating the effectivenes s of techniques used for repairing damaged fiber reinforced laminated composites. Effectiveness of the repair was assessed by the tensile st rength of the repaired laminate. In the tests the failure loads of lam inates repaired either by the scarf, the uniform lap, or the stepped l ap technique were measured. Data were generated with the following par ameters having been varied: type of material of the damaged laminate, type of repair material, scarf angle and number of external plies in s carf repair, length and number of repair plies in uniform and stepped lap repair, moisture content of the laminate prior to repair: moisture content of the laminate after repair, test temperature, roughness of grinding tool used in preparing the repair surface, and the temperatur e applied during the cure of the repair patch. The aforementioned para meters were varied over wide ranges resulting in systematic sets of da ta which shed light on the influence of each of these parameters on th e effectiveness of the repair.