Title: Full-Scale Structural and NDI Validation Tests of Bonded Composite Doublers for Commercial Aircraft Applications

Composite doublers, or repair patches, provide an innovative repair technique which can enhance the way aircraft are maintained. Instead of riveting multiple steel or aluminum plates to facilitate an aircraft repair, it is possible to bond a single Boron-Epoxy composite doubler to the damaged structure. Most of the concerns surrounding composite doubler technology pertain to long-term survivability, especially in the presence of non-optimum installations, and the validation of appropriate inspection procedures. This report focuses on a series of full-scale structural and nondestructive inspection (NDI) tests that were conducted to investigate the performance of Boron-Epoxy composite doublers. Full-scale tests were conducted on fuselage panels cut from retired aircraft. These full-scale tests studied stress reductions, crack mitigation, and load transfer capabilities of composite doublers using simulated flight conditions of cabin pressure and axial stress. Also, structures which modeled key aspects of aircraft structure repairs were subjected to extreme tension, shear and bending loads to examine the composite laminate's resistance to disbond and delamination flaws. Several of the structures were loaded to failure in order to determine doubler design margins. Nondestructive inspections were conducted throughout the test series in order to validate appropriate techniques on actual aircraft structure. The test results showed that a properly designed and installed composite doubler is able to enhance fatigue life, transfer load away from damaged structure, and avoid the introduction of new stress risers (i.e. eliminate global reduction in the fatigue life of the structure). Comparisons with test data obtained prior to the doubler installation revealed that stresses in the parent material can be reduced 30%--60% through the use of the composite doubler. Tests to failure demonstrated that the bondline is able to transfer plastic strains into the doubler and that the parent aluminum skin must experience significant yield strains before any damage to the doubler will occur.