Simulation of Patched Woven Fabric Composite Structures Under Tensile Load

Carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRP) based on woven or non-crimp fabrics are widely used in various industrial sectors such as automotive, aerospace, and wind energy. The demand for repair concepts for these high performance materials is strongly increasing. A new chemical-physical repair method of CFRPs was developed, based on the local removing of the thermoset matrix by energetically activated oxide semiconductors, and the subsequent patch integration and matrix refilling. In the scope of this repair method the design of load-adjusted textile repair patches is a major task. In this paper the design of a textile patch to regain the composites performance is analysed by simulation. Therefore, a finite element (FE) simulation approach based on the domain superposition technique (DST) is used. This approach enables the modelling of a textile reinforcement structure on the mesoscale, while the matrix is modelled on the macroscale. This leads to a high level of detail by a relatively low computational effort.