An engineering approach to geometrically nonlinear analyses of a one-sided composite repair under thermo-mechanical loading

A new analysis is presented for thermo-elastic stresses in a one-sided composite repair. The present analysis complements an earlier paper on the subject of thermal stresses in a one-sided composite repair [Thermal stresses in a one-sided bonded repair: An approximate geometrically nonlinear analysis, in press] by including the additional mechanical loads applied to the repaired plate. The new analysis is carried out within a large deflection theory. It is rather unwieldy to solve the thermo-mechanical problem using a rigorous geometrically nonlinear analysis. An approximate solution method based on an engineering approach is therefore proposed in this paper. This approach combines existing methods for two-dimensional and one-dimensional geometrically nonlinear analyses of a composite repair under either purely thermal loads or purely mechanical loads. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.