Publications
Further Evolution of Composite Doubler Aircraft Repairs Through a Focus on Niche Applications
The number of commercial airframes exceeding twenty years of service continues to grow. A typical aircraft can experience over 2,000 fatigue cycles (cabin pressurizations) and even greater flight hours in a single year. An unavoidable by-product of aircraft use is that crack and corrosion flaws develop throughout the aircraft's skin and substructure elements. Economic barriers to the purchase of new aircraft have created an aging aircraft fleet and placed even greater demands on efficient and safe repair methods. The use of bonded composite doublers offers the airframe manufacturers and aircraft maintenance facilities a cost effective method to safety extend the lives of their aircraft. Instead of riveting multiple steel or aluminum plates to facilitate an aircraft repair, it is now possible to bond a single Boron-Epoxy composite doubler to the damaged structure. The FAA's Airworthiness Assurance Center at Sandia National Labs (AANC) is conducting a program with Boeing and Federal Express to validate and introduce composite doubler repair technology to the US commercial aircraft industry. This project focuses on repair of DC-10 structure and builds on the foundation of the successful L-1011 door corner repair that was completed by the AANC, Lockheed-Martin, and Delta Air Lines. The L-1011 composite doubler repair was installed in 1997 and has not developed any flaws in over three years of service, As a follow-on effort, this DC-1O repair program investigated design, analysis, performance (durability, flaw containment, reliability), installation, and nondestructive inspection issues. Current activities are demonstrating regular use of composite doubler repairs on commercial aircraft. The primary goal of this program is to move the technology into niche applications and to streamline the design-to-installation process. Using the data accumulated to date, the team has designed, analyzed, and developed inspection techniques for an array of composite doubler repairs with high-use fuselage skin applications. The general DC-10 repair areas which provide a high payoff to FedEx and which minimize design and installation complexities have been identified as follows: (1) gouges, dents, lightning strike, and impact skin damage, and (2) corrosion grind outs in surface skin. This paper presents the engineering activities that have been completed in order to make this technology available for widespread commercial aircraft use.