Abstract
Cyclic loadings cause fatigue to the elements of machines leading to crack initiation and propagation. This phenomenon decreases the age of the elements. In particular, cracks decrease the stiffness of the parts and lower the parts natural frequency, leading to failure under normal working conditions. This paper introduces a new application to carbon nanotube (CNT) composites in the repairing process of a cracked specimen to restore the natural frequency of the specimen. Commonly, patches are made of high strength and high stiffness materials. This paper shows that even low stiffness materials, such as epoxy reinforced with CNT, can contribute to the repair of a cracked specimen. A 2D finite element (FE) simulation is used to study the effects of bonding CNT composite patches over the crack location to repair cracked metal specimens. The effects of the patch thickness, length, and CNTs weight concentration ratio are investigated. Results showed an increase in the natural frequency of 31% compared to the cracked specimen at a crack depth of 70% of the beam depth and at a distance of 20% of the total beam length from the support.