Effects of Porosity on CFRP Repair Performance with Aerospace Applications

Abstract

On-site repairs of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites, wet layup repairs with heat blanket method play a critical and practical role for the composite defects that occur in production and assembly. The porosity level should be controlled for the repair parts with heat blanket method since the pressure value, which enables ply consolidation, reduce the risk of delamination in the composite layers, is less or zero with the wet layup repaired parts with heat blanket compared to repair parts with autoclave pressure. In this experimental study, an investigation was conducted regarding the tensile strength change of prepreg structures using wet lay-up repair techniques with heat blanket based on the porosity, with a specific focus on stepped-repaired carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminates. This work aims to understand the strength and the associated failure mechanisms of on-site repaired woven carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminates through experiments. The Automatic Ultrasonic Pulse Echo Inspection Method was utilized to see whether porosity level of each repaired samples is within allowable design limits for this purpose. Prepreg structure's repairs using wet lay-up produced according to standardized aerospace procedures were tested under uniaxial tension per ASTM 3039D. The relationship between attenuation difference (ΔdB) and tensile fracture values has been explored, with a focus on investigating the associated failure mechanisms. Initially, a 60% strength recovery was observed for repairs with an 8-decibel difference. However, as the decibel difference increased, the strength recovery gradually decreased, ultimately reaching 45.2%.