Buckling behavior of adhesively patch-repaired composite plates

In this study, buckling behavior of adhesively patch repaired composite plates was investigated experimentally and numerically. Unidirectional carbon/epoxy composite plates with circular cutout were repaired with an adhesively bonded patch. Critical buckling loads of composite plates were researched without cutout, circular cutout, single patch-repaired, and double patch-repaired conditions. In addition to circular hole dimensions, patch length and adhesive thickness were used as geometrical parameters. Numerical study was performed in ANSYS finite element software three dimensionally. As a result, the critical buckling loads of single and double patch-repaired composite plates were increased from 96 and 263 ratios higher than circular-cutout composite plates. The percentile errors between experimental and numerical studies were determined from 2 to 11.5.