Composites are significantly used in aerospace, automotive and civil structures due to their high specific strength, high stiffness, corrosion resistant and longer fatigue life. During service life, composite structures are susceptible to damage, which reduces their structural integrity. For extending its service life, the damage needs to be repaired. In case of low velocity impact damage adhesively bonded patch repair is found to be effective in extending the service life of damaged parts. The repair performance is mainly influenced by patch stacking sequence, patch shape, patch thickness, overlap length and adhesive thickness and its shear strength. In the present work, both numerical and experimental works are carried out to study the mechanics of composite patch repair on damaged carbon fiber reinforced polymer panel of configuration [45/-45/0/90]s subjected to tensile load. The influence of patch stacking sequence, patch thickness, adhesive thickness and overlap length on repair performance is investigated through a mechanics-based design approach involving finite element analysis. Stress concentration factor and shear stress in adhesive layer are considered to analyze the repair performance. Later, a genetic algorithm-based approach in conjunction with finite element analysis is implemented for arriving at an optimized patch dimension and adhesive thickness. Experimental study is then carried out with optimized geometry using non-contact optical-based technique namely digital image correlation. The strain field from digital image correlation is compared against the finite element results. © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.