Mechanical Behavior of Single Patch Composite Repaired Al Alloy Plates: Experimental and Numerical Analysis

In this paper, glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) materials were used to repair cracked Al plates. In order to study the influences of resin properties and repair configurations, three resins and two patch configurations were selected to manufacture six groups of specimens. It turned out that only little differences (less than 3%) were found in tensile strength among the six groups. Compared with the parent plates, the strength recovery ratio was higher than 80% after the GFRP repair, representing excellent repair efficiency. Moreover, a finite element model (FEM) was established to analyze the failure process of the repaired structure under tensile loading. The FEM results show good agreement with the experimental results, indicating good precision. Both the experimental and numerical work found that the damage initiated in the plies adjacent to the crack surface and the failure modes was mainly delamination and fiber breakage. This work will be meaningful for the future application of GFRP in metallic structures.