Delamination Behaviour of Partially Cured Laminates

Abstract

[EN] Aerostructure skin-stiffener joints are prone to failure at the interface. Bolts, rivets or adhesives are currently used to assemble them. A new manufacturing process based on bonding partially cured material to uncured was evaluated in this work. Fracture toughness of partially co-cured laminates was analysed under mode I delamination tests for different degrees of pre-curing for one sublaminate. It was found that between 30% and 70% pre-curing degree the fracture mechanism changed from laminate delamination to interfacial failure between sublaminates, leading to a drop in GIC of about 35%. A fitting model of this behaviour can be used to quantify delamination toughness of partially pre cured interfaces and a new manufacturing process can be developed providing cost and process time benefits