The use of composite materials, such as carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites, aero-structures has led to an increased need of advanced assembly joining and repair technologies. Adhesive bonded repairs as an alternative to recover full or part of initial strength were investigated. Tests were conducted with the objective of evaluating the effectiveness of techniques used for repairing damage fiber reinforced laminated composites. Failure loads and failure modes were generated and compared with the following parameters: scarf angles, roughness of grind tool and number of external plies. Results showed that scarf angle was the critical parameter and the largest tensile strength was observed with the smallest scarf angle. Besides, the use of external plies at the outer surface could not increase the repairs efficiency for large scarf angle. Preparing the repair surfaces by sanding them with a sander ranging from 60 to 100 grit number had significant effect on the failure load. These results allowed the proposal of design principles for repairing CFRP structures.