Ultraviolet Light Curing Materials for Field Level Composite Repair

Rapid, high quality, on-aircraft repair techniques for fiberglass composite components are required to support the Air Expeditionary Force concept. Current field level repair methods use thermally accelerated adhesive bonding to restore the originaldesign strength of the composite laminate. Several problems exist with on-aircraft thermally cured repair methods. Airframe structural members act as heat sinks, increasing power demands and making it difficult to obtain a uniform cure temperatureprofile. Current resin systems require low temperature storage to avoid premature degradation, increasing storage cost and support complexity. UV cure resins avoid these problems, but it is difficult to develop a UV cure resin system that meets militaryaircraft service temperature requirements.Texas Research Institute Austin, Inc. (TRI/Austin) proposes the development of new high temperature UV cure resins for composite aircraft repair. To integrate the new resins into the required