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Study on impact performances of scarf-repaired carbon fiber reinforced

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Article  in  Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites · January 2014

DOI: 10.1177/0731684414562465

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Original Article
Journal of Reinforced Plastics
and Composites

Study on impact performances of 0(0) 1–12

! The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0731684414562465
polymer laminates jrp.sagepub.com

Liu Shufeng1, Cheng Xiaoquan1, Xu Yunyan1, Bao Jianwen2

and Guo Xin1

Abstract
Composite structures used in aircraft are vulnerable to low-velocity impact and replacing them with new ones requires
significant cost. Scarf-repair technique is an effective method to restore the stiffness and strength of damaged composite
structures. Previous studies on scarf-repaired composite laminates have focused on stiffness and strength recovery
efficiency, but limited attention has been directed toward the impact properties. However, scarf-repaired composite
laminates are also sensitive to low-velocity impact. The residual strength is worth investigating to ensure the safety of
scarf-repaired composite structures. In this study, experiments were conducted to test the residual compression
strength after impact. Two main factors, namely impact energy and location, were considered. Finite element models
were established to analyze the influences of these two factors and to predict the residual strength. Impact damages were
introduced by degrading the mechanical properties in the damaged area estimated through the C-scan photographs.
Results indicated that the damage area was larger when the impact was applied at the bondline of the top surface and the
residual strength was the smallest. Increasing the impact energy caused large damage area, in which the residual strength
declined. The predicted residual strength agreed with the experimental results well.

Keywords
Carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminates, scarf-repair, low-velocity impact, compression after impact, finite element
modeling

Adhesively bonded repair has been widely used and

Introduction has thus become an important method for aircraft
Advanced carbon fiber-reinforced composite materials structure repair. This method can restore the stiffness
have high specific modulus, high specific strength, des- and strength of the repaired structure without extra
ignability, corrosion resistance, and excellent fatigue structural weight added compared with mechanical
properties compared with conventional metal materials. repair. Bonded scarf repair can also maintain the
Given these advantages, composite materials have been smooth surface to satisfy the aerodynamic and stealth
widely and increasingly used in the aerospace and air- requirements.6,7
craft industries. However, composite laminate struc-
tures are vulnerable to low-velocity impact, which
causes serious internal delamination damage and ser-
iously degrades compressive strength. In engineering 1
School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering, Beihang University,
applications, composite structures inevitably suffer Beijing, China
2
from all types of impact, including hammer falling, Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials, Beijing, China
rocks, and hail. Replacing the damaged composite
Corresponding author:
parts with new ones results in high cost and waste of Cheng Xiaoquan, School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering, Beihang
materials, while the strength and stiffness can be restored University, 37 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, China.
by reasonable repair to regain the safety performance.1–5 Email: xiaoquan_cheng@buaa.edu.cn

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2 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Many scholars have conducted a large amount of meet the damage tolerance restoration of the original
experimental and numerical researches on scarf- composite structure.18
repaired composite laminates over the past decades; All aforementioned studies have been conducted on
the majority of these studies focused on the recovery 2D scarf joint of composite laminate. However, in prac-
efficiency of static strength and stiffness after repair.8–12 tical engineering, a 3D scarf repair technique is typic-
To improve the strength and stiffness recovery effi- ally used to repair the damaged composite panels.18 In
ciency, numerical methods have been used to optimize this study, an experimental investigation was conducted
the repair parameters (scarf angle, adhesive thickness, to test the CAI strength of 3D scarf-repaired composite
overlap length, patch shape, etc.). However, a few con- laminates. Four impact locations were selected to
siderations have been given to the residual load- explore the influences of impact location on the
carrying capacity of scarf-repaired laminates subjected impact damage. Four different impact energies were
to low-velocity impact. Scarf-repaired laminates are loaded on the 3D scarf-repaired composite laminates
also sensitive to low-velocity impact. to identify the delamination threshold loads and
Harman and Rider13 used a 2D scarf joint to study impact damage characteristics under different impact
the damage tolerance and impact resistance of scarf- energies. Moreover, a 3D finite element (FE) model
repaired composite laminates. Their results indicated was constructed to predict the residual compression
that the impact damage pattern of scarf joint is strongly strength of the 3D scarf repaired composite laminates
influenced by the location of impact relative to the scarf with impact damages. A progressive damage model was
joint tip. The most severe damage may occur when the implanted to simulate the damage process during CAI
impact is some distance away from the tip, in which tests. Numerical results were then compared with
case the structure is minimally tolerant to low-velocity experimental results to verify effectiveness of the
impact. The compression after impact (CAI) strength numerical model.
of scarf joint laminates is relatively higher than the CAI
of original composite laminate, whereas the tensile after
impact (TAI) strength is lower than the TAI of original Experimental studies
composite laminate. CAI strength is more vulnerable to
hygrothermal environment condition than TAI
Specimens manufacture
strength. The effect of scarf angle was studied in The material selected for this study was carbon fiber
Hoshi et al.,14 in which three angles (3 , 4.5 , and 6 ) reinforced polymer laminate, which was made from
were chosen to conduct the experiments. The impact unidirectional carbon fiber epoxy prepregs T300/
damage of scarf joint increased with increasing scarf 5228A provided by Beijing Institute of Aeronautical
angle, which resulted in a decrease in the residual tensile Materials. To simulate practical engineering applica-
strength. To model the impact failure of the scarf joint tion, the stacking sequence was designed as [45/02/
of composite laminates, the authors assumed adhesive 45/90/45/02/45/0]s, and the total thickness was
failure as a more catastrophic failure mode than approximately 2.7 mm. The stack prepregs were first
composite failure and two adhesive damage models packed in a vacuum bag with a vacuum pressure of
(cohesive element model and elastic–plastic models) 980 mbar and then were cured at 180 C for approxi-
were used.15 The former one was to simulate the mately 2 h in an autoclave with a pressure of 0.6 MPa.
impact damage, whereas the latter one was for residual According to the ASTM D7137 standard,19 the cured
strength after low-velocity impact. Kim et al. tested composite panels were cut into required dimensions
the impact properties of a 2D scarf-repaired laminate (150 mm long  100 mm wide) for test specimens,
with a tensile prestrain up to 5000 microstrain.16 where the 0 direction was along with the longitudinal
Results indicated that the prestrain has significant influ- direction. Damage was assumed to occur in the center
ences on the mixed damage of adhesive disbonding of each laminate. A scarf-repair technique was used to
and matrix cracking. Ichiya Takahashi et al. detected repair the damage. As shown in Figure 1, the damaged
the impact damage of scarf joint of composite lamin- area was removed by a scarf angle of 6 , and the
ates, especially for debondings of adhesive layer, bottom diameter was 10 mm. Subsequently, a corres-
with the use of lamb waves.17 The debonding was ponding patch with the same size of removed damaged
caused by the shear cracks and delaminations near region was machined from the same material as the
the impact point and propagated toward the bottom parent laminate. An adhesive film SY-14 M with a
surface. Wang et al. investigated the CAI strength of thickness of 0.2 mm was used to bond the patch and
2D multistepped joint of composite laminate through the parent laminate. After the parent laminate, the
numerical and experimental methods. The CAI patch, and the adhesive film were assembled properly,
strength of multistepped joints was about 8% under the repair was cured at 180 C under a vacuum pressure
the original composite laminates, which is close to of 980 mbar for 2 h.

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Shufeng et al.
Figure 1. Schematic of scarf-repaired laminate.
Table 1. Arrangement of test specimens.
Impact
Specimen location
Original laminates Center
Scarf-repaired P1
laminates
P2
P3
P4
Impact test
As shown in Table 1, the scarf-repaired laminate speci-
mens were divided into four test groups categorized by
four impact locations. Original laminates were also
tested as a control group. The original laminates were
impacted at the geometrical center. The four groups of
scarf-repaired laminates were impacted at points P1,
P2, P3, and P4, as shown in Figure 1. Each group
was tested under two impact energy levels, namely
4.45 and 6.67 J/mm. As shown in Figure 2, the impact
test apparatus consists of a mass block, an impactor, an
acquisition device, and a computer. The specimen was
clamped on the base support at four points around the
four corners. Between the mass block and impactor, a
load transducer was used to collect the impact contact
load during the impact moment, the duration of which
[1–12]
(JRP) [PREPRINTER stage]
3
was approximately 5–6 ms. Data were collected by the
acquisition device and a computer.
Compressive test after impact
After the impact test, the original and scarf-repaired
laminates of the above test groups were tested using
an INTRON 8803 hydraulic material testing machine
at room temperature under displacement control
(1.25 mm/min). The static load error was less than
0.5%. The specimen was placed in a support fixture
shown in Figure 3. The two sides of the specimen
were clamped by knife edge of the side support to
restrain the out-of-plane transitional degree of freedom.
The bottom and top of the specimen were clamped by
slide plates with an overlap of 8 mm. During the resi-
dual compressive strength test, each specimen of each
group was instrumented with uniaxial strain gauges to
monitor the longitudinal strains on the patch and adja-
cent to the patch on the parent laminate (Figure 4).
Impact
Specimen energy Specimen
Experimental test results
group (J/mm) number Impact test results and C-scan
Group 1 4.45 2 The impact test results were presented and discussed in
6.67 2 detail in Cheng et al.,20 which showed the location of
impact point had specific influences on the impact
Group 2 4.45 2
behavior of scarf-repaired laminates. With the impact
6.67 2 point moving from P1 to P3, the top of the load history
Group 3 4.45 2 curves had more oscillations. The maximum contact
6.67 2 force was the smallest when impact location was at
Group 4 4.45 2 P3. Correspondingly, the rebound height of the impac-
6.67 2 tor was the lowest, too. That means more energy is
Group 5 6.67 2 absorbed when the scarf-repaired laminate is impacted
at P3. However, when the impact location was at P4,
the responses were more alike those of original
laminates.
The impact load history curves presented in Cheng
et al.20 indicated that there were damages occurred in
the original laminates and scarf-repaired laminates
from the early load decreasing points. Subsequently,
the contact force increased again and entered into the
fluctuations. During this period, the damages, espe-
cially delamination damages, developed quickly.
Considering 6.67 J/mm impact energy as an example,
the C-scan images are presented in Figure 5 to show
the projected damage area caused by the low-velocity
impact in the five groups. Comparison of Group 1 and
Group 2 revealed that the impact induced less damage
in the scarf-repaired laminates than in the original
laminates. Analysis suggested that the adhesive intro-
duced in the scarf-repaired laminates could absorb par-
tial impact energy and mitigate the development of the
delamination damages. The damage of Group 2 was
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4 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Figure 2. Set-up of the drop-weight impact test.

limited in the patch area, and no fiber breakages

occurred in the bottom faces. When the impact location
moved toward the patch edge, damage developed to the
parent laminates. The damage area became largest
when the impact location was at the patch edge, i.e.
the bondline of the scarf-repaired laminates. Damage
not only occurred in the parent laminates but also
occurred along the bondline and in the patch laminates.
The damage in the patch laminates was larger than that
outside the patch. However, when the impact location
was at the parent laminates, the damage turned out to
be small and the shape of the damage area was similar
to that in Group 1, i.e. they were both nut shape and
both had protuberance along the 45 direction. Apart
from Group 2, the remaining groups all had visible
fiber splitting damage on the bottom face, especially
Group 4.

Figure 3. Schematic of compression test fixture. Residual compression strength

During the compression test, first cracking sounds were
heard when the load reached approximately 35–40 kN
but there were no visible damage on the surface of spe-
cimens. It revealed that the inner damage, such as fiber
breakage, was generated and developed until the load
dropped sharply. After the first cracking sound, cata-
strophic destruction happened suddenly. The initial
fracture was seen to occur on the back face around
the patch bottom of the patch. The damage developed
stably through the impact damage in the adhesive
and parent laminates. The final compressive destruc-
tion appearances of the scarf-repaired laminates sub-
jected to 6.67 J/mm impact energy are presented in
Figure 6.
Front view Back view Residual compressive strengths are listed in Table 2.
Comparison of the five groups under the two impact
Figure 4. Photos of the compression test setup. (a) Front view energy indicated that the residual compressive strength
and (b) back view. decreased by approximately 14–16% when the impact
energy increased from 4.45 to 6.67 J/mm. Comparison

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Shufeng et al. 5

(a) Group 1 (b) Group 2 (c) Group 3

(d) Group 4 (e) Group 5

Figure 5. Ultra C-scan images and damage appearance of the five group specimens under 6.67 J/mm impact energy. (a) Group 1,
(b) Group 2, (c) Group 3, (d) Group 4, and (e) Group 5.

of Group 1 and Group 2 proved that the scarf-repaired along the thickness, which was equal to the total
laminates achieved high restoration efficiency in impact number of the ply sequence. The material direction of
resistance. When the impact location moved from P1 each layer was modified according to the stacking
to P3, the residual strength declined smoothly. The resi- sequence of the laminate. The adhesive film was also
dual strength was lowest when the impact location was modeled using a 3D Solid45 element. Given that the
at P3, i.e. the patch edge. However, when impacted thickness of the adhesive film was only 0.13 mm, it
at P4, the residual strength increased again and the was divided into two along its thickness to avoid a
results were similar to those of Group 2. These experi- large shape ratio of the element. Figure 8 shows the
mental results have a good agreement with boundary condition and applied loading. Encastre
Whittingham et al.,7 i.e. the impact at the termination was applied at the lower side, and axial compression
location of the repairing patch caused the largest load was applied at the top side. The longitudinal cen-
strength reduction. tral face was constricted with a symmetric condition
about y axis. The out-of-plane degree of the two rows
of nodes 10 mm away from the side face was restrained.
Numerical analysis
3D FE model Failure criteria and property degradation rules
A 3D FE model was created using the ANSYS FE The elastic properties and strength of the CCF300/
code. Considering the symmetry of the scarf-repaired 5228A lamina and SY-14M film are shown in
laminates, half of the structure (see Figure 7) was mod- Table 3. For the parent laminate and patch, modified
eled to save the calculation cost. For the parent lamin- Hashin-type failure criteria21,22 were adopted to detect
ate and patch, an eight-node element Solid45 was used. the four failure modes: matrix cracking in tension and
The parent laminate and patch were divided into 20 compression, fiber breakage in tension and

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6 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

(a) Impact at P1 (b) Impact at P2

(c) Impact at P3 (d) Impact at P4

Figure 6. Compressive destruction appearances of scarf-repaired laminates after low-velocity impact. (a) Impact at P1, (b) impact at
P2, (c) impact at P3, and (d) impact at P4.

Table 2. Postimpact residual compressive displacement, failure

 2  2  2
load, and strength. 22 12 23
þ þ 1 ð1Þ
Residual compressive YT S12 S23
Failure load (kN) strength (MPa)
Matrix compression cracking (22 5 0)
Group 4.45 (J/mm) 6.67 (J/mm) 4.45 (J/mm) 6.67 (J/mm)
 2  2  2
1 81.56 68.17 302.09 252.50 22 12 23
þ þ 1 ð2Þ
2 80.68 67.55 291.80 250.17 YT S12 S23
3 77.22 64.87 285.98 240.24 Fiber tensile failure (11 4 0)
4 66.93 57.63 247.89 213.44
5 – 67.36 – 249.50  2  2  2
11 12 13
þ þ 1 ð3Þ
XT S12 S13

compression, fiber matrix shear-out, and delamination Fiber compressive failure (11 5 0)
in tension and compression. The failure criteria that
 2
corresponded to each failure mode are listed in equa- 11
tions (1) to (7). 1 ð4Þ
XC
Matrix tensile cracking (22 4 0)
Fiber matrix shear-out failure (11 5 0)

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Shufeng et al. 7

 2  2  2
11 12 13
þ þ 1 ð5Þ
XC S12 S13

Delamination in tension (33 4 0)

 2  2  2
33 13 23
þ þ 1 ð6Þ
ZT S13 S23

Adhesive Delamination in tension (33 5 0)

Patch
 2  2  2
33 13 23
þ þ 1 ð7Þ
ZC S13 S23

Figure 7. 3D FE mesh model: half of the scarf-repaired

laminate.

uz=0

ux= uy= uz 0

symmetrical about y axis

loading face uy=uz=0 ux 0

Figure 10. Location of strain gauges under compression load-

Figure 8. Boundary condition and applied loading. ing for specimens impacted at the center.

Start

Building FE model

Introducing impact damages

No
Stress analysis

Increase Check for Yes

Failure analysis Stop
load final failure

No
Yes Degradation of material properties at the
Check for failure
damaged elements

Figure 9. Flowchart of progressive damage analysis.

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8 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

In the above equations,  11,  22, and  33 represent material. Maximum shear stress criterion was used to
stresses in direction 1, 2, and 3, respectively;  12,  23, detect adhesive failure. Once the damage occurred, the
and  13 represent the shear stresses in each direction, stiffness decreased to a considerably small value.
respectively. In the coordinate system, the 1 - and 2-
axes are parallel and transverse to the fibers, respect-
Progressive damage analysis method
ively. XT and XC are the tensile and compressive
strengths in x direction, and YT and YC are the tensile To predict the ultimate strength and simulate the
and compressive strengths in y direction, respectively; fracture process under compressive load, an APDL
ZT and ZC are the tensile and compressive strengths program was used. A typical progressive damage
along thickness direction, respectively. S12, S23, and analysis flowchart is shown in Figure 9. After build-
S13 are the shear strengths in each plane, respectively. ing the FE model of scarf-repaired laminate, the
Property degradation rule is another important con- impact damages were introduced in by degrading
cern for progressive damage models (PDMs). The the material properties (using a factor of 0.228,29)
material should be degraded according to failure in the damaged area according to C-scan results.
modes. Chang et al.23,24 and Tan25,26 presented degrad- Displacement load was applied on the right side of
ation rules for laminated composite with open holes. the repaired laminates and the load was increased by
However, they used two different sets of degradation 0.02 mm every load step. During each load step, 15
rules. These two sets of degradation rules are listed in substeps were set to detect the damages and to
Table 4. Chang’s complete degradation model and ensure that no element failure would occur under
Tan’s degradation model extended by Camanho and the corresponding displacement load condition.
Matthews27 were compared in this study for laminate When element failure happened, their properties

Table 3. Mechanical properties of CCF300/5228A unidirectional lamina and SY-14M adhesive film.

CCF300/5228A lamina

E11(GPa) E22(GPa) E33(GPa) G12(GPa) G23(GPa) G13(GPa) n12 n23 n13

132 9.31 9.31 4.68 4.00 4.68 0.312 0.32 0.312
XT(MPa) XC(MPa) YT(MPa) YC(MPa) S12(MPa) S23(MPa) S13(MPa) ZT(MPa) ZC(MPa)
1633 1021 53.8 212 80.4 80.4 80.4 53.8 212

SY-14 adhesive film

E(GPa) n S(MPa)
3.4 0.35 31

Table 4. Laminate material property degradation rules.

Material property degradation rules

Failure mode SET1 SET2

Matrix cracking in tension E22 ¼ G12 ¼ G23 ¼ v12 ¼ 0 E22 ¼ 0.2E22, G12 ¼ 0.2G12, G23 ¼ 0.2G23
Matrix cracking in compression E22 ¼ G12 ¼ G23 ¼ v12 ¼ 0 E22 ¼ 0.4Eyy, G12 ¼ 0.4G12, G23 ¼ 0.4G23
Fiber breakage in tension E11 ¼ E22 ¼ E33 ¼ G12 ¼ G23 E11 ¼ 0.07E11, E22 ¼ 0.07E22, E33 ¼ 0.07E33,
¼ G13 ¼ v12 ¼ v23 ¼ v13 ¼ 0 G12 ¼ 0.07G12, G13 ¼ 0.07G13, v12 ¼ 0.07v12,
v23 ¼ 0.07v23, v13 ¼ 0.07v13
Fiber breakage in compression E11 ¼ E22 ¼ E33 ¼ G12 ¼ G23 ¼ G13 E11 ¼ 0.14E11, E22 ¼ 0.14E22, E33 ¼ 0.14E33,
¼ v12 ¼ v23 ¼ v13 ¼ 0 G12 ¼ 0.14G12, G13 ¼ 0.14G13, v12 ¼ 0.14v12,
v23 ¼ 0.14v23, v13 ¼ 0.14v13
Fiber–matrix shear-out failure G12 ¼ v12 ¼ 0 G12 ¼ v12 ¼ 0
Delamination in tension E33 ¼ G23 ¼ G13 ¼ v23 ¼ v13 ¼ 0 E33 ¼ G23 ¼ G13 ¼ v23 ¼ v13 ¼ 0
Delamination in compression E33 ¼ G23 ¼ G13 ¼ v23 ¼ v13 ¼ 0 E33 ¼ G23 ¼ G13 ¼ v23 ¼ v13 ¼ 0

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Shufeng et al. 9

(a) 8000 (b) 8000

SET1 SET2
7000 SG1-EXP 7000 SG1-EXP
SG1-FEA SG1-FEA
SG4-EXP SG4-EXP
6000 SG4-FEA 6000 SG4-FEA
SG6-EXP SG6-EXP
SG6-FEA SG6-FEA
Strain (-1× 10E-6)

Strain (-1× 10E-6)

5000 SG7-EXP 5000 SG7-EXP
SG7-FEA SG7-FEA

4000 4000

3000 3000

2000 2000

1000 1000

0 0
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000
Compression load (N) Compression load (N)

Figure 11. Strain–load curves obtained from experiments and numerical analysis using degradation rules SET 1 (a) and SET2 (b).

were degraded according to the degradation rules

shown in Table 4. The analysis stopped when the
load–displacement curve comes to an inflection
point.

Results and discussion

Strain results of experimental test and
numerical analysis
The strains were monitored at locations shown in
Figure 10 using strain gauges. Experimental results
and numerical results were compared by drawing the
strain–load curves as shown in Figure 11. At the begin-
ning of the curves, the numerical results were consistent
with the experimental results. The experimental curves
came to an inflection point when the load was increased Figure 12. Overview of damaged scarf-repaired laminate when
to approximately 40 kN. It is analyzed that the bound- fracture occurred under compressive loading.
ary condition on the loading face in the FE model may
be stricter than the experimental condition. Severe
deflection toward the bottom surface of the patch was
observed during the experimental test. The strain at the
(a) 220 MPa (b) 226.7 MPa (c) 238.5 MPa
top surface consequently increased quickly after the
deflection happened. Comparison of the results using
the two degradation rules SET1 (Figure 11(a)) and
SET2 (Figure 11(b)) indicated that the degradation undamaged elements damaged elements
rules insignificantly influenced the predicted strain
and stiffness of the repaired laminates. Therefore, the
Figure 13. Damage propagation in the adhesive film.
FE model has a good ability to predict the structural (a) 220 MPa, (b) 226.7 MPa and (c) 238.5 MPa.
stiffness for the scarf-repaired laminates subjected to
low-velocity impact.
laminate. The fracture deformation was also illustrated
as that the patch center was bending toward the bottom
Failure mode and damage evolution
surface of the repaired laminate. The asymmetrical stiff-
As shown in Figure 12, the damaged area was located ness distribution along the thickness may cause the
at the patch edge and the middle part of the parent bending deformation under uniaxial compressing load.

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10 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Ply No. 223.70 MPa 232.88 MPa 238.52 MPa 244.52 MPa

3 (0°)

11(90°)

20(45°)

fiber tensile failure matrix tensile cracking fiber-matrix shearing failure

fiber compressive failure matrix compression failure delamination failure
initial impact damage

Figure 14. Damage propagation in the scarf-repaired laminate subjected to impact at P1.

Figures 13 and 14 show the damage propagations in damage propagation differed in the location of the ini-
the adhesive film and the scarf-repaired laminate under tial failure and the direction. As the impact point
compressive loadings after low-velocity impact at P1, moved away from the center, the initial failure occurred
respectively. As shown in Figure 13, the damage in the around the initial impact damage and the propagation
adhesive film originated around the 0 plies in the top direction rotated toward impact location.
part of the laminates and then propagated to the
bottom part gradually. After the occurrence of adhesive
failure, the failure of laminates occurred in the 0 plies
Predicted CAI strength
in the top surface of the patch laminates. In the lower The predicted failure loads of the five groups under
0 plies and the middle 90 plies of the laminates, dam- 6.67 J/mm impact energy were summarized and com-
ages happened in the parent laminates around the pared with experimental results, as shown in Table 5
bonding line and spread to the side of the specimens. and Figure 15. The 3D FE model using the progressive
For 0 and 90 plies, the damages were mainly fiber failure model could predict the CAI strength of scarf-
failure and matrix failure in compression, respectively. repaired laminates well. The predicted results using
The major failure mode in the inner 45 plies was the degradation rule SET1 had a low accuracy whereas
fiber–matrix shearing out. For the other group, the those using SET2 had a high accuracy. The reasons

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Shufeng et al. 11

Table 5. Compressive strength of original laminate and scarf-repaired laminate subjected to 6.67 J/mm impact.

Scarf repaired plate

Original plate (impact at center) Impact at P1 Impact at P2 Impact at P3 Impact at P4

EXP 252.5 248.35 238.49 211.88 247.65

SET1 246.95 217.21 196.07 192.00 222.88
Error (%) 2.20 12.54 17.79 9.38 10.00
SET2 326.95 248.72 244.30 215.74 261.96
Error (%) 29.49 2.27 3.17 2.01 6.43

the impact location was at the center. The presence of

adhesive layer mitigated the impact damage and the
90 Exp
SET1
scarf-repaired laminates were insensitive to damages
80
SET2 at the bondline and adjacent to the patch.
70 Second, the damaged area was the largest when the
60 impact location was at the bondline. Compression test
Failure Load/kN

50
40
30
20
10
0
original repaired
plate P1
Figure 15. Comparison between the predicted failure load and
the experimental failure load.
for the results maybe that the material in the impact
damaged area was degraded throughout the thickness
in the model, while delamination, matrix cracking, and
fiber breakage failure introduced by impacts distributed
along the thickness in a certain way. Degradation rule
SET2 defined that the damaged material maintained a
part of the original stiffness to obtain a result approach-
ing the real strength. The numerical results showed the
same trending with the experimental results, i.e. the
compressive strength decreased most severely when
the impact location was at the bonding line between
the patch and parent laminate. The CAI strength of
the scarf-repaired groups was close to that of the ori-
ginal laminate plate. Therefore, the scarf-repair tech-
nique could recover the damage tolerance to the level
of the original plate.
Conclusions
In this study, the damage tolerance of scarf-repaired
laminates subjected to low-velocity impact was investi-
gated by experimental and numerical methods. First, it
was shown in the experimental data that the scarf-
repaired laminates had good impact resistance when
results also showed that the CAI strength of the
repaired laminates decreased the most when they were
impacted at the patch edge. It indicated that the bond-
line area of scarf-repaired laminates was sensitive to
low-velocity impact, and the impact-induced delamin-
ation in the adhesive and parent laminate around the
patch edge caused large decrease in CAI strength.
repaired repaired repaired Third, a 3D FE model implanted with PDM was
P2 P3 P4 used to predict the residual strength of the scarf-
repaired laminates subjected to 6.67 J/mm low-velocity
impact energy. The model compared two material deg-
radation rules and found that the modified Tan’s deg-
radation rules had great accuracy in predicting CAI
strength. However, the degradation rules insignificantly
affected the predicted structural stiffness. The numer-
ical model could agree with the experimental results
well in the initial stiffness and final failure strength.
Fourth, the impact-induced damages accelerate the
damage propagation in the scarf-repaired laminates,
and the failure behavior under compression load
varies with the impact location. The damages initially
occur around the impact-induced damage locus and the
propagation turns to be unsymmetrical when the
impact point is not at the center.
Conflict of interest
None declared.
Funding
Financial support from National Natural Science Foundation
of China (NSFC) on this study under Project No.11472024 is
gratefully acknowledged.
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