A micromechanics based model for predicting fatigue life of composite laminates

The current practice, as well as the hitherto proposed models, for assessment of fatigue life of composite laminates rely largely on experimental fatigue life data. In this paper, we propose a methodology for fatigue life prediction that utilizes a micromechanics based evaluation of damage evolution in conjunction with a semi-empirical fatigue failure criterion. The specific case treated is that of cross ply laminates under cyclic tension. The predicted results are compared with experimental data for several glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy laminates, and good agreement is found.