Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2016
The effects on the stress intensity factor of bonding repair patches over a crack in a large sheet under uniaxial loading are studied using two simple numerical models. The variation of the stress intensity factor with increasing crack length is investigated and results for repairs involving large elliptical patches are found to agree with a closed-form approximation. Further cases are considered where the patch is either rectangular in shape or less than a certain critical size. For such repairs the closed-form approximation for the stress intensity factor is shown to be unsuitable.
Formerly University of Southampton