The effect of a bonded hygrothermal aged composite patch on the stress intensity factor for repairing cracked metallic structures

It is well known that the stress intensity factor is considerably reduced by a bonded composite repair. Herein, the finite element method is used to compute the stress intensity factor for cracks repaired with bonded hygrothermal aged composite patches. The results obtained show that the relative variation of the stress intensity factor has a linear behaviour analogous to the experimental results for the mechanical characteristics of an aged laminated composite.