Analysis of the adhesive damage for different patch shapes in bonded composite repair of corroded aluminum plate

Many military and commercial aging aircrafts flying beyond their design life may experience severe crack and corrosion damage, and thus lead to catastrophic failures. In this paper, were used in a finite element model to evaluate the effect of corrosion on the adhesive damage in bonded composite repair of aircraft structures. The damage zone theory was implemented in the finite element code in order to achieve this objective. In addition, the effect of the corrosion, on the repair efficiency. Four different patch shapes were chosen to analyze the adhesive damage: rectangular, trapezoidal, circular and elliptical. The modified damage zone theory was implemented in the FE code to evaluate the adhesive damage. The obtained results show that the adhesive damage localized on the level of corrosion and in the sides of patch, and the rectangular patch offers high safety it reduces considerably the risk of the adhesive failure.