Investigating the Crack Propagation at the Surface of the Composite Patch Bonding to the Steel Substrate

One of the applications of composite materials in the oil and gas industry is to repair worn metal pipelines. Calculating the strain energy release rate of the first failure mode is an important criterion for testing the bond strength and predicting the failure of these types of structures. In this paper, the rate of strain energy release during crack growth in bonding a composite patch to a steel substrate is investigated. In this regard, using the theory of elastic beam first, a new method is proposed to calculate the thickness of the metal and composite for Unlike Double Cantilever Beam (UDCB). This is due to the fact that the standard for experimental test procedure of strain energy release rate (ASTM-D5528) is for symmetric double cantilever beams. In this study, samples are fabricated from composite consisting of unidirectional fiberglass/ epoxy resin with harder in the upper and steel in the lower half of the beam. After sample fabrication, the strain energy release rate of UDCB and Asymmetric Unlike Double Cantilever Beam (AUDCB) are calculated experimentally. In addition, for the separation of first and second failure modes in symmetric and asymmetric samples, finite element simulation based on the virtual crack closure technique is presented. This analysis is to qualify the accuracy of the proposed equation for the thickness of unlike beams to achieve the first failure pure mode of symmetric samples. Also, it calculates the contribution of the first and second modes of failure in the strain energy release rate of AUDCB samples.