Damage tolerance and repair of GFRP warships

The United Kingdom has operated glass-fiber-reinforced plastic (GFRP) mines weeper vessels since the early 1970s. Under typical operating conditions th ey may sustain minor impact damage, leading to delaminations within the hul l shell and debonding of the stiffener frames. Such damage is costly to rep air, and hence there has been a move towards cost reduction through better understanding of the structural behavior of typical defects under the loadi ng conditions present within the structure. This approach, using damage tol erance techniques, has led to a relaxation in the requirement for repair, a nd consequently the number of repairs has been substantially reduced. In ad dition, advance techniques have been developed using resin infusion technol ogy for the re-attachment of debonded stiffener frames. The structural element tests used to validate the damage tolerance philosop hy will be examined and the resin-infusion repair method explained using a case study detailing its first successful application.