Repair of type B damage to marine sandwich structures

摘要

Marine vessels manufactured from sandwich structures with glass reinforced polymer (GRP) composite skins and PVC core are now common. These vessels will inevitably be subjected to damage and the approach used in carrying out the repair is critical to maintain the strength and stiffness of the structure. This paper concerns the repair of Type B damage to sandwich structures, defined as damage to one skin and the core. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) repair technique was evaluated and found to bedifficult to carry out and could result in a poor quality repair. Static flexural testing indicated that the presence of voids in the bond-line seriously affected the strength of the repair. A modified repair technique was proposed to simplify severalaspects of the repair procedure and to improve the repair quality. Test results showed that the modified repair technique overcame the problems associated with the RAN technique.