ABSTRACT
Repair and maintenance cost drives a large percentage of the lifetime cost of aircraft structures. Understanding repair issues can lead to a structure that significantly lowers the lifetime cost. Advanced composite materials, while offering the potential to increase aircraft capabilities with minimum weight, are more susceptible to repairable damage than conventional aircraft materials. Improved inspection and repair methods are required to ensure structural integrity and aircraft readiness in the existing operational environment. Many of today’s innovative composite designs may result in aircraft structures that are unreasonably difficult to repair.
As a first step, technical issues associated with bonded composite repair of composite structures were investigated. An extensive literature review identified many areas where real world composite repairs are being used successfully. This review also showed areas where more work can be done to improve the knowledge base of bonded composite repairs. Most of the repair aspects available in the literature are summarized in the paper.
A review of the manufacturing processes and analytical techniques used in bonded repair has led to an alternate technique for field level repairs. The proposed new technique incorporates the resin transfer molding process for composites.
