Fatigue damage growth in notched laminates

The issue discussed in the current paper deals with experimental and finite element analysis of fatigue problems for notched rectangular multilayered plates. The fatigue damage growth and fracture at holes in reinforced laminates loaded in tension is presented. The analysis concerns the +/- 45 degrees glass/epoxy laminated plates with several types of holes such as vertical elliptical, horizontal elliptical and circular. Also a few remarks on the static analytical solutions and fatigue live predictions are presented. Here, the initial results are only demonstrated, which are fundamental for the further analysis. The experiments shown that independently on the shape of the hole the fatigue process includes three stages, i.e. the matrix cracking, the delamination between the plies and the final failure. The first stage of the failure can be described with the help of the standard finite element codes.