1.1 This practice covers the procedure for determination of the compressive strength of a tapered or stepped bonded joint of polymer matrix composite materials. It is applicable to secondary bonded or co-bonded laminates with either unidirectional plies or woven fabric reinforcements. The materials to be bonded may be different systems. In the bondline, a separate adhesive material may or may not be used (example: adhesives may be used with a prepreg system or may not be used with a wet lay-up repair system). The range of acceptable test laminates and thicknesses are described in 8.2.7. The standard repair types are the same as for the tensile loading in Practice D8131/D8131M. While external patch repairs are not explicitly covered in this practice, these repairs could be tested as a non-standard specimen using this practice.

1.2 This practice supplements Test Method D7249/D7249M for compressive loading of facesheet sandwich constructions by long beam flexure. Several important test specimen parameters (for example, joint length, ply overlaps, step depth, and taper ratio) are not mandated by this practice; however, these parameters are required to be specified and reported to support repeatable results.

1.3 Unidirectional (0° ply orientation) composites as well as multi-directional composite laminates and fabric composites, can be tested.

1.4 Units—The values stated in either SI units or inch-pound units