Stress-Skin Repair

Stress-skin repair is the family of techniques used to restore the structural integrity of an aircraft's load-bearing skin after damage. The skin is part of the primary load path, so the wrong repair can seed a fatigue crack that brings the plane down thousands of cycles later. Aluminum repairs follow AC 43.13 and the OEM's Structural Repair Manual. Composite repairs use CMH-17 and are vastly harder: scarf repairs at 50:1 taper, vacuum-bagging, autoclave cure, NDI to verify cure-through. Any repair that deviates from the SRM needs Designated Engineering Representative sign-off. Roles where this matters: Manufacturing, Engineering, MRO Operations.