A mechanistic model for fatigue damage evolution in composite laminates

We propose a mechanistic model which is capable of describing the evolution of transverse cracking in cross ply laminates subjected to cyclic tension in the longitudinal direction. The key feature of the model is that it incorporates delamination associated with transverse cracks in a manner that induces further formation of transverse cracks as delamination grows in fatigue. A variational approach is taken to estimate the stresses in the region between transverse cracks, and these are found to be accurate away from the crack planes when comparison is made with finite element computations. The evolution of transverse crack density and the associated overall elastic moduli changes predicted by the model are in agreement with experimental results. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.