Boundary element analysis of curved cracked panels with adhesively bonded patches

A new boundary element formulation for analysis of curved cracked panels with adhesively bonded patches is presented in this paper. The e ect of the adhesive layer is modelled by distributed body forces (i.e. two in-plane forces, two moments and one out-of-plane force). A coupled boundary integral formulation of a shear deformable plate and two-dimensional plane stress elasticity is used to determine bending and membrane forces along the adhesive layer taking into consideration the compatibility conditions in the patch area. Two numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the e ciency of the proposed method. It is shown that the out-of-plane bending behaviour and panel curvature have signi cant in uence on the magnitude of the stress intensity factors