A benchmark study of simulation methods for high-cycle fatigue-driven delamination based on cohesive zone models

New benchmark studies of six different computational methods for simulating fatigue-driven delamination cracks in composite laminated structures under cyclic loading are presented. All the studied methods are based on cohesive zone models and are aimed at high-cycle fatigue simulation. The benchmark studies describe and compare the traction-separation response in the cohesive zone and the transition phase from quasi-static to fatigue loading for each method. Furthermore, the accuracy of the predicted crack growth rate is studied and compared. Studies of the performance of each method in non-self-similar crack growth problems are presented and it is shown that there is a large difference in the accuracy of each method. Finally, studies of the dependency and sensitivity to different quasi-static material parameters and method specific fitting parameters are presented. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.